


Suck On That

by BleedingInk



Series: Love In the Dark [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood Drinking, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, M/M, Minor Character Death, Murder, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:48:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 83,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23703388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingInk/pseuds/BleedingInk
Summary: Meg and Castiel have to deal with the aftermath of killing Tom, including the possibility that Meg’s Sire, Luc, would come after them. They have very few allies in this regard, in fact, Benny might be the only one. Of course he would do anything for a friend, including stop chasing the boy with big green eyes he bit the other night. But when a newly made vampire starts wreaking havoc in the city, they might find that their problems are bigger than they imagined.
Relationships: Benny Lafitte/Dean Winchester, Castiel/Meg Masters, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Series: Love In the Dark [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1707061
Comments: 26
Kudos: 18





	1. A Lover for the Night

**Author's Note:**

> Who has two thumbs and wrote a sequel to a five-years old fic? **points at self**
> 
> This is the second part of Bite Me, and will be longer, but that fic gives you more context to this one, so I suggest starting with that one.

The party was reaching its climax and Benny was feeling great about himself. He was leaning against the bar, a full glass of whiskey in his hand, as his eyes travelled through the crowd of writhing bodies in front of him. The strobe lights were blinding and the music was loud enough it would’ve drown all words, but not to him. He could hear the pants of the dancers, see each of the muscles of their shirtless bodies, smell the sweat covering their skins. The rush of adrenaline in their blood, the hard-pumping of their hearts.

It made his mouth water.

He held his breath as he knocked down his drink. He was being a bit reckless, he knew it. He hadn’t fed in a couple of weeks and he could feel his muscles aching for it, a light headache forming in the back of his skull. He should have eaten a bag before going into the bar, to quench his thirst a bit before looking for his next warm meal. But as he walked around the town, the sounds and the scents coming from that little underground club have been too enticing to resist.

There was a small platform on the left, where several young men in nothing but shorts or speedos were dancing and jumping in front of a huge rainbow flag. Some of them wore glitter or body paint, rubbing against their dance partners or kissing them on the lips or the neck. Benny watched them intently for a moments, barely realizing he was smiling. He had enjoyed watching the last few decades of increased sexual liberation unfold. He loved how all this modern young people played with their sexualities, with their genders, without the shame and the guilt that had plagued their forefathers. “Pride”, they called it. “Gay”, like something that was joyful and beautiful and free.

Meg had never understood why this fascinated Benny.

“Sodomites have always existed. My brother was one. I don’t know why this is so new to you.”

“I believe that’s an outdated and kind of offensive term, dear.”

“Fine. Inverted, then,” she said, rolling her eyes. Benny didn’t have to tell her that was also very outdated, before she added: “That’s not the point. The point is that you stay too close to them.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because we’re not like them, Benny,” Meg had insisted. “I understand the need of community, believe me, I do. But it’s one thing to form a proper coven and another to spend your nights among these little humans that would never understand you.”

Meg was older than him and the last time she had mingled with humans had been at the start of the last century. That had also been after she separated from her own sire and the coven he had included her into. She had turned into a bit of a hermit in the last few decades. They were friends, but not a coven, per se. They would need at least one or two other members to be considered such. When she needed a warm meal, she preferred to come into her victims’ homes like a thief in the night, take what she needed from them and leave as if she had been nothing but a dream.

That had been why Benny had been so surprised when she had actually adopted a human pet for herself, practically a boy by their standards. He hadn’t asked her why and even if he had, he didn’t think that Meg would’ve had an answer. She had just… chosen him and that was that.

Benny didn’t think he could choose a human mate or a pet like that. Yes, he still enjoyed human contact, he still enjoy blending in crowds and having long conversations with beautiful strangers before he took them to bed and bit their necks. But he didn’t want to keep them around for more than a night. He could offer them immortality, but there was always the chance that they would turn him down. It had happened in the past. He didn’t think it would hurt any less if he tried it again.

So he preferred falling in love briefly, taking what he needed from them and then letting them go. That was exactly what he was looking for that night in that little club: someone to fall in love with.

And there was a lot to choose from, for certain. Beautiful young boys, maybe a bit too young to really be there. Tall, muscular men with tanned skins and broad shoulders. More feminine ones, with long hair and colorful nails. All beautiful, all laughing, all dancing unaware of the vampire that watched them from the bar.

Benny closed his eyes and let his mind wonder. The thoughts drowned out the music, hundreds of voices echoing in his head.

_… shit, he’s cute…_

_… I need another drink…_

_… I love this song!_

_… I’m so hungry right now…_

_… look at me, please…_

_… I love you, you’re so perfect…_

_… I should go home._

The last thought rang like a bell inside of his skull and Benny opened his eyes suddenly, like he’d been punched in the gut by it. He shook his head and tried to find the person it had come from, which shouldn’t have been so easy with how crowded the bar was.

The man that was projecting that thought, though, was doing so in such a loud manner that he had no trouble finding it again. It brimmed with such loneliness and regret it stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the general cheerfulness.

_I should go home. I never should have come here._

He was sitting at the other end of the bar, with a beer that he seemed to be in no rush to finish. Whenever someone walked by him, he smiled at them and acknowledged them with a nod, but no one sat by his side and he didn’t engage in any chat or any talk with anyone. He looked almost overdressed in his jeans and grey shirt, though this was tight enough that it showed off the bulging biceps in his arms.

He was beautiful, too. Short brown hair, a strong jaw. A broad back. His fingers were long and thin, and Benny couldn’t help imagine what they would feel like around his…

_This was a mistake. I should go home._

Benny moved closer to him, before he even realized what he was doing. It was like his sadness attracted him like a magnet. Or maybe he’d managed to pique the vampire’s curiosity. He was such a handsome man, why did he want to go home? Why was he there drinking alone instead of enjoying the ambient around him, why wasn’t he charming someone with his good looks?

He was close enough to him that he could smell his cologne, a sweet smell mixed up with the saltiness of his sweat, and right underneath, his warm blood pulsating in his veins…

The man stood up and turned around, so suddenly that he stumbled unto Benny. He could have, if he’d wanted to, catch his hand and the bottle that escaped his fingers before he dropped them, but he chose not to. Sometimes, humans needed a bit of an ice-breaker to start a conversation.

The beer was cold on his shirt, so he didn’t need to pretend to be startled by it.

“Shit!” the man exclaimed. “Sorry, man, I didn’t see you there!”

He was screaming to make himself heard over the music, though Benny could have heard him perfectly even if he had whispered. He had a rough, deep voice that gave away a habit of smoking. He was looking around nervously, while Benny did his best to reassure him:

“It’s okay. It doesn’t matter. It’s just a shirt…”

The lonely man found some napkins on immediately moved to try and wipe the stain from Benny’s clothes, though it was too late. The beer had already soaked in the fabric and it wouldn’t come off without some actual water and soap. He kept rubbing at it and it was obvious he was going to keep rubbing it if it hadn’t been for Benny physically grabbing his wrist to stop him.

“Don’t worry about it,” Benny repeated, lowering his head so that his eyes would meet the man’s. “It’s not important.”

The man blinked at him, slightly disoriented. It must have been the alcohol, though, because Benny was pretty sure he hadn’t used his charm on him. Not yet, at the very least.

“I’m sorry,” the man repeated, but at least he put the napkins down instead of fruitlessly trying to clean Benny’s shirt. “I just… this hasn’t been my night, you know?”

He laughed, but Benny had the distinctive impression that he wasn’t lying at all. More than that night, it sounded like it had been a rough couple of days.

“We all have our off moments.” Benny shrugged. “Let me buy you another beer.”

“What? No, you don’t have to…”

“I startled you,” Benny pointed out. “It’s my fault you spilled your drink.”

“It really isn’t, I wasn’t paying attention and…”

Benny put a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t even have to squeeze before the man stopped talking and looked at him again, his eyes getting wider. Benny knew what he was seeing. Vampires had an alluring quality to them, something that make humans immediately attracted to them.

Attraction enough wasn’t enough to tempt a warm meal into bed with him those days, though. Maybe when men who were attracted to men (“sodomites” as Meg so colorfully put it) were ashamed and repressed and had very little opportunities to live their desires with another willing partner, Benny giving them just a hint or an insinuation of his interest had been enough. Now, however, this new newfound pride sometimes made it more difficult to convince someone to come with a handsome stranger somewhere private. And Benny could Charm them into coming with him anyway, but he felt dirty when he did. He preferred his meals willingly given.

That was why, if this man had told him no when he insisted:

“Let me buy you a drink.”

Then he would’ve let it go. He would have moved on to another beautiful stranger.

But the man stared at him another second, his full lips slightly parted before he swallowed and smiled.

“You know what? Maybe I can use another drink.” He sat down and offered Benny his hand. “Name’s Dean, by the way.”

Benny didn’t mention, of course, that he knew Dean had been thinking of leaving just moments before. It wasn’t relevant. They signaled the bartender, who brought them two more beers.

“So, why are you having such a rough night?”

“Oh, man, you really don’t want to hear about that,” Dean said, laughing. His Adam’s apple bobbled up and down when he took the beer to his lips and swallowed. Benny tried very hard not to stare at it. It would’ve been rude.

“I really do,” he assured him, with a smile. “You seem like an interesting man, Dean.”

“Well, I, uh…” Dean muttered, flustered, and then laughed again. “Oh, shit, I’m sorry, I’m off my game.”

“What does that mean?” Benny tilted his head.

Dean took another swig of his beer, reflexively.

“Any other night, if you came on to me and bought me a beer, I would be trying to climb you like a tree,” he explained in the end. “But I don’t want to waste your time. I’m not… feeling great right now.”

Benny bit the inside of his cheek and tried to keep his smile up, just to hide his disappointment.

“That’s a real shame.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Benny assured him.

He hesitated. How thirsty was he, really? Not enough to want to let this go. Dean had a strange pull on him, something that had nothing to do with physical attraction. Maybe it was his obvious melancholy, something so deep and touching that made him stand out in a sea of happiness and mindless fun. Yes, all these other men were beautiful and fun and would be down for whatever Benny offered to them. But Dean… Dean could give him a story. A love story for the night.

Meg would’ve laughed at him, but she was the one currently crashing with a human college student, so she really didn’t have a leg to stand on.

Benny moved closer and a put a hand on Dean’s forearm.

“You look like you need someone to talk to, handsome,” he said. “I’m a good listener.”

Dean stared at him and then let out a long, guttural laugh. It was devoid of mirth, but Benny could swear it was the first time he’d seen some sort of mirth from him.

“It’s the first time a guy has come on to me at a gay club and offered to listen to me.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

“Can’t you?” Dean gestured towards the stage, where a man was doing a slow striptease while the crowd around him cheered him on and clapped. Benny through a disinterested glance and then placed all his attention back on Dean.

“I mean I can’t imagine someone not seeing you and wanting to talk to you wherever you go,” he explained. “It’s just a lucky coincidence for me that I found you here today.”

Dean laughed again, a little more animatedly this time. Benny dared to peer into his mind briefly and found that his thoughts weren’t as bleak as before.

_Maybe this night won’t be so bad after all._

Benny promised himself he would make that thought a reality for him.

“Do you want to get out of here?”

“Oh, yes. I’m done.” Dean finished his beer in one long gulp and stood up… his feet stumbling and threatening to send him face down on the floor. Benny caught by the arm and let him lean all his weight on him. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Benny assured him, but then another worrying thought came to him. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m a bit tipsy, if that’s what you mean,” Dean said, looking up at him. He smiled. “But I’m fine. Thanks. Let’s take a walk.”

Benny was more than happy to oblige. He locked his arm around Dean’s and guided him towards the exit, making their way through the sweaty bodies that crowded the slippery dance floor. The night outside was a lot cooler and Dean trembled in his shirt, so Benny immediately took off his blue jacket and offered it to him.

“Well, aren’t you a gentleman,” Dean said. He slid the sleeves over his arms and shivered. “Woah, were you even breaking a sweat in there?”

Benny thought that the human heat of the inside of the club would warm up his skin and clothes, but it appeared that wasn’t the case. Vampires had a cooler temperature than humans and he feared that Dean would notice that something was off, but that was the only comment he made. They started walking down the street, Dean with his hands on the pockets of Benny’s jacket.

“So, what brought you out tonight?” Dean asked.

“I was looking for some… quality company,” Benny said, shrugging. “You?”

“What a coincidence, so was I,” Dean said. He rose his eyebrows and beamed at Benny. “That and some… distraction.”

“Distraction?”

“Family issues,” Dean explained. “I just had a big fight with my brother, which sucks, because he’s the only family I have left. Our mom died when we were little and our dad had a stroke last year… and I’m sure you don’t want to hear about all that.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Dean avoided his gaze, embarrassed.

“Well, you know… it’s kind of bleak.”

“I don’t mind bleakness,” Benny said, smiling to himself. If Dean only knew… “I have known loss too and I also have a… sister, who is making some choices I disagree with.”

“Younger sister?”

“Older. But, she’s had to deal with some things in her past that have made her a bit of difficult person. And now she’s got involved with someone that I’m not sure is right for her.”

“I wish I had that problem,” Dean said, with another chuckle. “My brother’s fiancée is perfect. She’s smart, she’s beautiful, Sam is disgustingly in love with her…”

“You don’t like her.”

Benny didn’t even have to read his thoughts to guess that. Dean rubbed the back of his neck. His smile had turned bitter now.

“It’s like she’s taking him away from me,” he said. “She’s convinced him to move halfway across the country and get a high paying job and buy a house and… I don’t know, I’m not doing great with the idea of only seeing Sam twice a year. So today we fought about it. Sam accused me of being jealous of the life he’s building because I never got the chance to do something like that. Our dad was a bit of a hardass and made me go into the family business before I even finished high school, so maybe he’s right.”

“No, I don’t think he is,” Benny said. “Forgive me, I just met you and I don’t know your brother, but the way you speak about him, it’s clear he’s the most important person to you. You’re going to miss him when he leaves. That’s only natural.”

“Is it?” Dean titled his head. “Don’t you think it’s kind of selfish of me to want him to stay close?”

“Maybe. But feelings are rarely selfless,” Benny pointed out. “You’re not a bad person for having them.”

They stopped under a streetlight. Not for any reason, Dean simply stopped walking and Benny followed his lead. Under that golden beam of light, he could see now other details of his face that he had missed in the club: the constellation of freckles in his nose and cheeks, the vivid green of his eyes.

Benny stared breathlessly at him as a smile, a genuine smile, curved his lips. It was like staring at a sun that wouldn’t burn his skin.

“Thank you for that,” Dean said. “I feel… a lot lighter.”

“I’m glad you do,” Benny replied. He was going to add something about how confession was good for the soul when Dean stepped closer to him. He was as tall as Benny, but he had the impression that he was standing on the tip of his toes as he put his hands on Benny’s cheeks and pulled his face closer.

Benny let it happen. He let those lips warm his skin, he pulled that young, strong body and squeezed it against him. In the middle of the street, under the light. The exhilaration that invaded him was almost as good as drinking blood. He opened his mouth to take in more of Dean’s taste, to let him know exactly how much he wanted him.

When they broke away, Dean was trying to catch his breath. He kept his eyes close for several seconds.

_Come on, just ask him._

“I, uh… my car is parked on the next block,” he muttered. “It’s a ten minutes ride to my place. If you want to… I mean, you don’t have to…”

Benny kissed him again to quiet away his stuttering and his doubts.

“I’d love to.”

* * *

They made the ten minutes ride in seven and they were back tangled in each other’s arms before the elevator even finished closing his doors. It was as if once Benny had agreed to come with him, Dean’s walls and hesitations had completely vanished and all he could do now was kiss and kiss and kiss him.

Benny took it all in: his scent, his touch, the lustful thoughts in his head about what he wanted to do to Benny and wanted Benny to do to him in return. He had quite the dirty mind under that beautiful boyish face of him.

The vampire would be more than happy to please him.

He didn’t even let go when they were in front of his door. Benny kept an arm around Dean’s waist while he struggled with the keys and left a trail of delicate from behind his ear, down to his neck. He stopped, pressing his lips against the vein that pulsated right underneath his skin, his moth watering with anticipation.

Not yet. Dean needed to be sufficiently distracted, sufficiently entranced not to notice what was going on. Benny wouldn’t take much of him, just enough to sustain him for a while. Drinking blood stolen from the hospital and drained from corpses right before they were embalmed was enough to survive, but it weakened them over time. Benny didn’t have as many enemies as he did a century before, but old grudges amongst vampires died hard. It was strange, with how much they lived, one would think they would be better at letting go…

Dean finally managed to open the door and Benny’s thoughts were once more engulfed by him and nothing else.

Once they were inside, Dean was a lot less hesitant. He grabbed Benny’s hand and guided him through the darkened living room, directly into his room. They stopped near the bed long enough to help each other out of their clothes and then they fell on the covers, fully embracing one another, skin against skin. Benny let his hands roam over Dean’s muscles, down towards the hardened edge of his erection…

“Benny. Wait, hold on…” Dean panted and Benny moved his hand away.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No. God, no,” Dean assured him, between chuckles. He still moved away to reach into his night stand’s drawer. “It’s just… we need condoms.”

Benny laughed along with him. He didn’t really need them, as his vampire physiology was immune to all human diseases, but if it made Dean more comfortable…

It did. The moment they were ready, Dean sank unto the bed, letting Benny’s caress relax him and excite him. Every now and then he rewarded him with a kiss or a loud moan when he touched or kiss a sensitive spot. He seemed to melt under Benny’s ministrations, just completely lost in his pleasure.

“Turn around,” Benny groaned in his ear and Dean obeyed eagerly.

“You don’t have to be so careful with me,” he commented as Benny massaged his back. “This isn’t my first rodeo.”

Benny’s hand gripped his shoulders tighter and brought him closer to him.

“It’s your first time with someone like me.”

Dean screamed out when Benny took him, following his advice not to be careful. The control he had kept on himself all night was starting to slip and his movements were brusque and erratic. Dean didn’t ask him to stop, the grip of his hands on the sheets becoming tighter. His back arched and he squirmed, the only word falling from his mouth every time Benny thrust forwards being a continuous stream of: “Yes, yes, yes…”

Benny licked at the beads of sweat forming on his back and pressed him down on the mattress. He could hear Dean’s blood singing to him, humming under his skin. He couldn’t hold on any longer. He was just… so thirsty…

Dean’s skin broke under his teeth with ease. He screamed out, but he kept on moving in rhythm with Benny, holding onto the headboard of the bed, throwing his head back.

His blood was velvety on Benny’s tongue and he lapped at the wound and swallowed greedily. It tasted sweet with the alcohol he’d been drinking, intoxicating and perfect. Like every time this happened, Benny hadn’t noticed how thirsty and weak he had been until the force he was stealing from Dean started spreading through him, making his muscles feel stronger, his senses sharper. Including each of his nerves, that were now waking and aching for release.

He pushed harder into Dean’s trembling body and let go.

With a loud exclamation, Dean did the same.

In the clarity that followed his climax, Benny realized that he still had his face buried on Dean’s neck. He swallowed one last time and licked at the punctured skin, tasting the last drops before the wound close. In the morning, Dean would have a huge bruise on it, but nothing more than if his lover for the night had given him a… what was the word? A hickie.

He left a kiss on Dean’s cheek, who grumbled sleepily.

“Holy shit, that was good,” he mumbled. “I can’t… I don’t even think I can move right now.”

Benny chuckled and detangled himself from him. He found the bathroom easily enough and returned with a wet towel. In the meantime, Dean had, in fact, managed to move, if only to pull the covers aside and lazily discard them on the floor. He blinked, a dazed look in his eyes, and he rubbed his neck.

“Did you… did you bite me?”

“Just a bit,” Benny said. He placed the towel against the neck and hoped Dean wouldn’t notice the blood.

However, he seemed to be too tired to even think about anything. He just closed his eyes and laid down against the pillows while Benny cleaned him up.

“You’re so nice,” Dean said. He yawned and rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m so tired right now.”

“It’s okay,” Benny assured him. “Go to sleep.”

Dean seemed reluctant to do so, but his body had been drained from the sex and the loss of blood. He relaxed with a deep sigh.

“Okay, but just a little bit. Then we can do it again.”

Benny laughed. Unlike Dean, he felt revitalized, awake. He laid next to his sleeping body, watching his perfect profile as his muscular chest rose and fell. He probably would sleep until the morning. Benny would have liked to say with him until then, but he didn’t like to be away from his home when the sun rose up.

Getting exposed to the daylight wouldn’t make him burst into flames, as so many tales speculated, but younger, weaker vampires could suffer severe skin burns and damage in their sensitive eyes. Benny was much resistant, but he still preferred to be somewhere safe while the sun was up. It must have been something instinctual, because even Meg, who was old and strong enough to walk under the sun if she so desired, preferred to sleep during the day.

But he could stay a little longer. He raked his fingers through Dean’s short, brown hair, softly, even though he was so deeply asleep that he doubted anything could wake him up right now. His lover for the night. He had really chosen well.

After a while, the nervous energy of having just fed won him over. He stood up and found his discarded pants on the floor. Dean’s apartment was neat and clean. There was a small bookshelf with titles such as _Slaughterhouse Five_ and _Cat’s Cradle_ , but also some science fiction titles like _Dune_. The wall was decorated with a couple of cowboy movie posters. Next to the couch, there was an acoustic guitar on a stand, accompanied by a box full of vinyl records. Dean was apparently, a classic rock man, and Led Zeppelin had a special place in his heart, because their name appeared more than that of any other band among his collection.

Over the coffee table, Benny found some framed pictures. One showed a dark-haired man in a tuxedo and a blonde woman in a white dress. Another one had a small child in a baseball cap, standing next to a man who knelt next to him with a glove and a baseball bat. The third one showed Dean, all grown-up now, sitting on the hood of a black muscle car, along with another young man. They both held bottles of beers in their hands and were smiling for the camera.

His brother, Benny deduced. Sam.

He was invaded with such tenderness towards his lover. Dean really cared for his family and he wasn’t afraid to showcase it, just like he wasn’t afraid to showcase his varied interests and tastes. He was so unapologetically him and he hated that he had ever felt like he wasn’t enough to make the person he loved the most stay around him.

Benny was about to return to the room to wake him up, see if he really was up to for another round, when he heard a buzzing on the floor. It came from his jacket that had been discarded near the door. His phone displayed Meg’s name on the screen.

“Hello?”

“Benny, thank God!”

It wasn’t Meg, but Castiel, her human pet. His voice was brimming with panic.

“You have to help us. Tom tried to attack Meg, and she killed him, but she’s lost a lot of blood, and she looks very weak and I stole a car, and…”

“Woah, woah, slow down, kid,” Benny said. He tried to stay as calm as he could, but as Castiel’s words sank in, as he realized what exactly he was telling, his stomach became a knot. “Where did this happen?”

Castiel gave him an address, not far away from his apartment, where Meg had been staying.

“I’ll take care of everything,” Benny promised him. “You keep Meg drinking and I’ll be there in a couple of hours.”

Castiel started saying something else, but Benny ended the call. The warm fuzziness he’d experienced moments before when he was in bed with Dean had evaporated, leaving him cold and afraid.

Tom. Meg’s brother, who had stayed with her Sire when she’d left the coven. If he was there, there was a chance the others were too.

Why now? Who’d told them where to find Meg?

He had no way to answer those questions. He needed to get moving.

Dean was fast asleep in the bed and didn’t even move when Benny came back to pick up his shirt and his pants. He stopped for a moment in the doorway to watch Dean’s back, as full of freckles as his face, and sighed. He didn’t like to do this, but maybe it was for the best.

He moved closer to Dean and leaned next to his face. He gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. Dean shuffled, but didn’t wake up.

“I wish I could stay a little longer, but my sister is in trouble,” Benny muttered in his ear. “Thank you for everything. You’re a beautiful, wonderful man. Don’t ever doubt it.” He stopped and hesitated. “Call Sam in the morning. Apologize and tell him how you feel. Life is too short for you to be fighting with the people you love.”

Dean’s only answer was a snore. He wouldn’t remember Benny’s exact words in the morning, but he trusted he’d influenced him enough that he would listen to him anyway.

He finished getting dressed and headed for the door. He stopped with his hand on the knob for a moment.

He didn’t know why he was doubting. He needed to move on now. It always had to be that way, even if something terrible hadn’t cut his night short. Maybe Meg was right and he took his lovers a little more seriously than he should. Not for their sake, but for his.

Either way, he needed to leave now. Even if it broke his heart a little.


	2. A Grim Reminder

Meg was sleeping peacefully on the bed. She didn’t have that sickly pallor anymore and her wounds had healed, miraculously closing with every drop of blood she drank. After checking that all the windows and doors were locked (Castiel wasn’t sure it was something that could stop a vampire if it truly wanted to come from them), they had both gone to sleep, despite it being too early for the time when Meg normally went to bed.

Castiel thought the adrenaline of what had happened would keep him awake, but he had been wrong. The moment he’d pressed his head to the pillow, he’d fallen into a deep and thankfully dreamless slumber. For three hours, at least. He was thirsty when he’d woken up, perhaps from all the blood that he’d let Meg take from him, but he didn’t want to risk moving and waking her up.

Now that he had a moment to think about it, the events of the night before were starting to finally sink in.

Meg’s brother had attacked them. He’d tried to kill them. Meg had saved his life.

He’d let her drink from him, even though there was no guarantee that she would stop before she killed him, especially in her wounded and weakened state.

She’d begged him to go away and he’d refused.

He’d told her he loved her.

It wasn’t that he regretted his words or that he didn’t feel like that. The more he thought about it, though, the more he realized that was the absolute true, but for some reason… he regretted saying it. He regretted the circumstances. He wished he could’ve told her during one of the long nights they spent lying away in each other’s arms, or during the day when she insisted on cooking meals for him or when she kissed him before he left for class.

Any of the moments of calm and peace that they had enjoyed together before this. Because he was suddenly fearing that they may never have a moment like that again.

He knew what Meg was. He’d known from the moment she had first slipped into his room to try and get a warm meal, to seduce him in his half-asleep state before leaving him to think that he’d dreamed it. For some reason, though, she had decided to stay with him, she had decided she loved him. She had chosen him.

He had almost got used to the idea that having Meg was like having a human girlfriend, with some quirks. He knew, logically, that it wasn’t. After he’d got over his initial disbelief and accepted what she was, he thought he knew what it meant for her to be a vampire. She had told him about the centuries she’d been alive, about the people she had killed to feed on them. He knew that this wasn’t a normal situation.

But it was one thing to know it and another thing to understand it. And he didn’t really think he’d understand it until he’d had Tom’s teeth inches away from his throat, until he’d had to carry Meg’s limp body all the way to his place, until he’d offer her his neck for her to drink.

Benny had warned him.

“Not all of us are this cute and cuddly.”

In that moment, Castiel thought he was warning him for his life, and yes, he was aware he could die. He was human. He didn’t necessarily have to be killed by a vampire. A car could crash, he could slip in the shower. Hell, his anemia could take him out. But Meg had lived for so long, she had survived so many things that he’d been convinced she was indestructible.

When Tom had thrown her around like a rag doll; that was when he’d really been scared. That was the reason he was now watching her sleep, listening attentively to her breathing to reassure himself that she was still there, that he hadn’t lost her.

But he could still lose her.

There were three knocks on the door and Meg suddenly sat up, her long black hair a puffy mess around her face. Castiel also moved, his heart pumping hard in his chest until he saw her shoulders relax with a deep sigh.

“It’s Benny.”

She threw one of Castiel’s hoodies over her head and left the room so he quickly he almost couldn’t follow his movements. By the time he’d got up and put on some pants, she had already opened the door for the other vampire.

“What the hell happened?” Meg asked.

“I could ask you the same thing, suga’” Benny replied, with his thick Southern accent. “What was your brother doing here?”

Castiel popped his head out of the bedroom. He knew well enough that the vampires were both aware of his presence there, but they seemed too agitated to pay attention to him right then.

“What did you do to him?”

Benny sighed. He looked a less pale than the last time Castiel had seen him, but other than that, he remained quite the same: tall, with bulging arms and a beard in his round face. He wasn’t wearing his cap and there was a stain on his shirt.

Castiel realized he was focusing on all those details because he really didn’t want to know about Tom.

That still didn’t stop him from hearing Benny’s words:

“I put him in the car your boy stole and set it on fire for good measure.”

“No one… no one got hurt, right?” Castiel asked and grimaced to himself when the both of them turned towards him. “I didn’t want to steal a car, but we were five blocks away and Meg was weak…”

Meg was standing in front of him in a second, with a hand on the back of his head.

“You did nothing wrong,” she promised him. “You saved me.”

“I mean, I guess the person whose car got stolen and burned might not be too happy about it,” Benny intervened. “But that’s hardly the point.”

“Where did you learn to do that, anyway?” Meg asked, tilting her head.

“I… was late for class one day, I’ve lost the keys to my car and my friend taught me how to hotwire it,” Castiel explained, blushing. “I had to sell that car, eventually, but…”

“That is also hardly the point,” Benny interrupted them. He sounded almost exhausted from having to keep interrupting them. “The point is, what was Tom doing here and how did he find you?”

Meg’s lips became a tense, straight line. Her hand slid down Castiel’s arm until they intertwined their fingers together.

“He knew about Cas,” she said, turning towards Benny. “He knew that I don’t kill anymore. I haven’t seen any of them in over a century, Benny. How did he know all about what I’ve been up to?”

“I didn’t tell anyone about your human,” Benny promised.

“I’m not saying you did, but someone caught him up to speed.”

“Well… who would want to hurt you?” Castiel asked. “Other than Luc.”

Benny and Meg exchanged a quick look and then Meg closed her eyes.

“Boris,” she muttered.

“Who’s that?”

“He’s a vampire who lives outside of the city,” Benny explained. “We met him… how long ago was it, fifty years or so?”

“He played nice at first,” Meg explained. Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “Tried to butter me up with promises of love and whatnot.”

“I don’t think he was trying to butter you up just for the territory, darling. He genuinely had a thing for you,” Benny pointed out.

“Oh.”

Castiel sat down on the chair in front of the table. He didn’t know why this information surprised him. Meg had mentioned she’d taken other lovers in the past and well, she was over three centuries old.

“Why didn’t you…?”

“Because he’s a brute with a feeding preference for teenagers,” Meg said, bluntly.

Castiel shivered. Though Meg and him hadn’t actually done much more than a heavy petting, he knew there was a sexual element to feeding. Meg said it was so the people they were feeding on wouldn’t be scared and wouldn’t be in pain. If Boris was really going after young people…

“After Meg rejected him, he moved north and started a coven,” Benny said. “I think it has maybe six, seven vampires now. Which is a lot.”

Castiel shivered as he mentally did the calculations. Benny and Meg fed a lot more often because they didn’t kill their victims and supplemented their diet with dead people’s and donated blood.

“How often do they need to kill?”

Benny squinted his eyes, as if he wasn’t sure, but Meg answered for him.

“For younger vampires like the ones in Boris’ coven? Once a week, maybe two.”

“That’s… fourteen dead people per week.”

“I doubt he’s hunting that much,” Benny pointed out. “It would be too obvious. Too many bodies to hide.”

“That’s still a lot of dead people! And you just… let him?”

He realized immediately that had been the wrong thing to ask. Meg let go of his hand and crossed her arms over her chest while Benny shot him a glare that chilled him to the bone.

“No, we don’t just _let him_ ,” Meg stated. “When they wonder into our territory, we get rid of them and Boris knows better than to cross our lines. But he would do the same to us if we were to roll up to his home and tried to kill his companions.”

“We’re lucky he hasn’t decided to launch a hostile takeover,” Benny pointed out.

“We aren’t lucky.” Meg clenched her jaw. For a second, her eyes shone in a way that reminded Castiel of a cat when the light hit them, a reflection that reminded him that she might have looked human, but she definitely wasn’t. “He’s a coward. He knows I’m older and more powerful and his newborn vampires would have no chance against me.”

Castiel opened his mouth to ask how she could be sure about that. She had trouble taking on Tom; he couldn’t imagine fighting six vampires at the same time. But then he crossed glances with Benny and immediately shut up.

“We’ve been having a bit of a cold war with Boris for the last past decades,” Benny explained. “He leaves us alone, we leave his coven alone. It works, but he never forgave Meg for rejecting him.”

“So you think he… spied on her?” Castiel asked. “Found out about us and let Luc know?”

“He could have,” Meg said. Her face had gone somber. “Tom didn’t just show up. He was looking for me, he was coming to Cas’ building. He just happened to intercept us before we got here.”

“If Luc is coming for you, and he knows where Cas lives, then this place is no longer safe,” Benny pointed out. “You should go back to your house.”

“Your house?”

“What, you thought I just live on the streets or crashed with pretty boys at random?”

Castiel of course had never stopped to consider so. He knew, of course, that Meg sometimes disappeared for some hours and came back with a new change of clothes, but she had spent there so much time in the last couple of months, it was like she had practically nested in his place forever.

“I was… imagining more of an isolated castle atop of a cliff,” he said, trying to alleviate the tension.

It worked. Meg bit her cheek, but it was obvious she was holding back her laughter. Benny, on the other hand, threw his head back and let out a long guffaw.

“You know, I’m starting to see what you like about him,” he commented.

“Yeah,” Meg said. She wasn’t mad at him anymore, luckily, because she smiled again and stretched her hand across the table to grab his again. “In any case, it’s true. You should get a hold of your friends, your family.”

“You think he’ll go after them?”

“If he hasn’t changed… and I don’t believe he has,” Meg added. “Then yes. That’s his M.O.”

“They were all at the birthday party,” Castiel said, but a cold shiver went down his spine even as he tried to convince himself he had no reason to be scared. “Gabriel, Hannah, my cousins… I don’t have many friends from college…”

“You still should check on them in the morning,” Meg insisted. “And tomorrow night, we’re moving to my house. You’re coming too, Benny. I know I don’t have a right to drag you into all of this…”

“Suga’, I’m already in the middle of this,” Benny said. “We’re not a coven, but we’re friends and I’m not abandoning you when you need me.”

There was a subtle change in Meg’s demeanor. Castiel could have almost thought he’d imagined it, but it was as if her shoulders were less tense, her body a little more relaxed. It was as if she had considered the possibility of Benny not helping them, and then, what would they have done? For all of her bravado, she couldn’t face a half a dozen other vampires without some back-up.

Castiel once again felt terribly useless. When pushed came to shove, if they were attack again, he would be a hindrance, a liability. And he couldn’t let Meg get hurt again trying to protect him.

He was thinking about how to bring this up when Benny spoke again:

“You two should go back to sleep. I’ll watch the door.”

“Yes,” Meg said, closing her eyes and leaning against Castiel. “Thank you, Benny. We’ll figure out how to solve this in the morning.”

* * *

Dean’s cellphone was ringing. It woke him up, but he didn’t bother getting up to pick up the call. His entire body ached, but it was a good kind of pain, like what he got after a work out at the gym or a long day at the workshop.

Or maybe after a night with a cute guy.

That was the thought that finally pushed him to open his eyes. Maybe his cellphone would wake Benny up. Maybe he was already up. Dean had woken up in a stranger’s place after a one night stand before their host did and he knew exactly how awkward it was. He didn’t want Benny to feel that way and more than that… he wanted to talk to him. He wanted to thank him. He had really been down the night before and the fact he took the time to actually listen to him instead of just trying to get him into bed…

Well, the getting into bed with him had also been good. Extremely good. He needed to thank him for that too.

But the time he managed to convince his eyelids to open, his cellphone had stopped ringing. There was daylight pouring in through the window. His heart jumped on his chest, thinking he might have been late, but then he remembered it was Sunday. He sat up and look around.

The other side of the bed was perfectly made, like no one had slept there at all. The only clothes on the floor were his. There were no sounds coming from his bathroom of his kitchen.

“Benny?” he called out tentatively, but he already knew that he would get no answer.

Well, it wasn’t like Benny had any obligation to stay the night, but for the looks of it, he had left right after they’d finished fucking and Dean had fallen asleep. He didn’t know why that disappointed him. Benny had seemed like such a great guy. Dean had believed they really had a connection and all that bullshit one was supposed to feel. Sam had told him when he’d asked him how he knew proposing to Jess was the right thing to do for him.

“When you know, you know. It just feels right.”

Dean had felt incredibly right with Benny the night before. Of course, that might have just been the beer.

He let himself fall against the pillows with a sigh.

“Winchester, you’re a hopeless romantic,” he chastised himself. Honestly, how deep of a connection could he have with a random guy he’d just met?

Before he could keep groveling in his disappointment, his cellphone rang again. He really wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone, but whoever it was apparently wasn’t getting that memo.

He had to feel up on the floor because his phone had apparently fallen off the pocket of his jeans before he found it. He frowned at the screen when he saw the name on it.

“Hey, Cas, what’s up?” he answered, confused.

“Hello, Dean. Uh, sorry to bother you. How… how are you?”

This confused Dean even more. Yeah, he was friends with Castiel, he supposed, but only because had the feelings the list of Castiel’s friends was a very short one. He had shared a dorm with Sam before he moved in with Jess and Cas got his own apartment, and yeah, sometimes they had invited him to hang out with them casually. They had even taken him on a road trip one time for Sam’s birthday, along with Jess.

They weren’t close enough to randomly call one another just to ask how they were, however.

“I’m… fine, thanks?” Dean said. Was he still drunk? Was he dreaming? Was this really happening? “How are you? Why are you calling?”

“No reason. Just… I haven’t been able to get a hold of Sam. Do you know where he might be?”

That finished waking Dean up.

“Well… I talked to him yesterday morning,” he explained. He chose his words carefully. He really didn’t want to explain to Castiel that their brunch had ended up in a big blow out. “He didn’t mention going anywhere in particular today, so he should be home with Jess. Try reaching her.”

“Yes, that’s the issue. She’s not picking up either.”

That was a little more worrying, but Dean tried not to get his thoughts go in that direction. He was just reacting this way because he was used to worrying about his little brother.

Also, he might have been feeling a little guilty about the fight the day before.

“Huh. Maybe they’re just having a lazy Sunday in and turned off their phones to spend time with one another?” Dean suggested. They had done things like that in the past, but the weird thing was that Sam usually let him know beforehand. Then again, maybe he hadn’t this time because he was pissed at Dean.

“Yeah. Maybe,” Castiel said, but he didn’t sound convinced. He sounded… downright disturbed, which was odd. This whole thing was odd.

“Hey, is everything okay with you?”

“I just… well, you see, my girlfriend and I were coming back home after my brother’s birthday party…”

“Woah, woah, stop. Go back,” Dean interrupted him. “Your girlfriend?”

Now he knew he must have been sleeping because, how the hell would dorky, ultra-introverted Castiel get a girlfriend? Unless the girl literally landed on his lap, he was usually completely oblivious to when a girl was flirting with him.

“It’s… a recent relationship,” Castiel said. He sounded nervous now. “You don’t know her. Anyway, that’s not the point. When we were coming back home, we got… attacked.”

“Attacked?”

“Uh… mugged.”

“Shit, are you okay?” Dean asked, only realizing how stupid the question was after it had left his mouth.

“We’re fine. I was just calling Sam to see if he had some sort of legal advice he could give us?”

That was still kind of weird. If they had been the ones that got robbed, why would they be requesting legal advice? Either way, Dean figured that Cas was just feeling shaken and trying to do something to feel better about the situation.

In any case… Dean hated that he had fought with Sam. He was his little brother and he needed to know that whatever he decided to do, Dean would not stop loving him, ever. Cas’ troubles and the shocking news that he had a girlfriend were as good an excuse as any to call Sam up.

“You know what? Let me see if I can get in touch with him and I’ll tell him to give you a call, okay?”

“Okay. Thank you, Dean.”

That seemed like the natural end of the conversation, but Cas didn’t say goodbye or ended the call. After a few seconds of awkward silence, Dean realized that, in typical Castiel fashion, he wasn’t going to.

“Well, I’ll be calling you then…”

“Dean,” Castiel interrupted him. “There’s something else I need to tell you.”

“Okay?” This call was getting more and more confusing. “Get it off your chest, bud.”

“I have never been the most social person.”

Well, those were just breaking news right there, but Dean bit his tongue as Castiel went on:

“I’ve always found it difficult to make friends, especially in new places and whatnot. Sam, and then you… you made me feel welcome within your group, you made me feel appreciated and accompanied. You’re some of the best friends I’ve ever had. I just wanted to say thank you for all of that.”

If Castiel’s tone hadn’t been so earnest, Dean would have almost believed that Sam had put him up to play some sort of prank on him. However, he felt a little bad because he had just been thinking that he wasn’t that close to Cas and here he came to discover that Cas held him in much higher regard.

“How bad did this mugger scare you?” he asked.

“It was… quite a frightening experience. I’m going to go spend some time at Meg’s… my girlfriend’s home. So I just wanted to tell you that, in case I don’t… in case I don’t see you for a while.”

“Okay, sure,” Dean said. He had the distinctive impression that wasn’t what Castiel had been planning to say, but the dude was in such a weird mood he figured it was better not to push it. “Uh… I appreciate you too.”

“Thank you. Goodbye, Dean.”

He ended the call before Dean could answer him. Dean sat on his bed, still butt naked, wondering what the hell had that been all about. His first impulse after something like that was to call Sam and comment with him how weird it had all been, but just as Castiel had told him, he wasn’t picking up his phone.

Well, at least he knew that he wasn’t picking up for anyone. It wasn’t just him that he was mad with.

Dean got up to get a shower, get a fresh pair of jeans up and went to the kitchen to make himself some breakfast. His rational brain kept telling him he wasn’t going to find anything, but he couldn’t stop himself from looking around. Benny hadn’t left him a note or a message of any kind.

“Fuck and dash,” Dean muttered, staring into his coffee mug. He wanted to be angry, he really did, but he was just sad. Of course Benny hadn’t want to stick around. Dean had been such a sad moron the night before. Who would want to stay?

He shook his head and tried calling Sam again.

The weird thing was that his phone kept ringing and ringing, with no one picking up. If it had gone straight to voicemail, Dean would’ve suspected that Sam had, in fact, turned it off. Or forgot to charge it. Or had simply blocked Dean because he didn’t want to deal with his idiot of a brother. Or very clear and realistic possibilities.

But the fact that it kept ringing and ringing…

He didn’t know why he felt so unsettled by that. Maybe it was because of the weird night he had (Benny was a little weird, wasn’t he? Like, with the biting and whatnot? Dude was freaky, at the very least) or maybe it was because of Cas’ phone call. Something about his tone, like he wasn’t expecting to come back or to see Dean again, ever…

He must have been freaked out because of the mugging, Dean concluded. And that feeling was spreading to him, like a malignant gas. Sam was probably, very likely, safe at home with Jess, enjoying the sunny Sunday day.

He still wanted to make sure that was the case.

He finished his breakfast, washed his mug and grabbed his keys. He tried calling once more from the car, but to no avail.

Sam had given him a key to his and Jess’ apartment, in case of emergencies or if Dean ever needed somewhere to crash after a night out for some reason. He had rarely taken advantage of that privilege, because he was sure Sam would revoke it if he abused it. He was certainly going to revoke it now if they didn’t make up, and then Dean wouldn’t have it all once Sam and Jess moved to California permanently…

No. He wasn’t going to think like that. He needed to focus on the present.

He climbed the two sets of stairs to his brother’s apartment and after some hesitation at the door (what if they were still sleeping? Yes, it was eleven o’clock and Sam was an annoyingly early riser, but they could be!), he let himself in.

“Sam?” he called as he stepped inside. “Jess? Hey, guys. It’s me. I brought you some donuts…”

The apartment was silent. He left the donuts on the kitchen counter and looked around. There wasn’t any signs that anyone had had breakfast there. The coffee pot was cold and empty, the pans were still hanging from their hooks against the wall. They’d forgotten to put away some of the plates, but for the looks of it, no one had cooked there that morning. Or even the night before.

“Sammy?” Dean kept calling.

The coffee table was clean. Sam and Jess sometimes ate there instead of the table, when they had takeout or pizza, but there were no traces of it that day. That was strange, because for all her virtues, Jess was a bit of a mess. She left plates on the rack or forgot to pick up her laundry from the dryer, small stuff that sometimes irked Sam, but didn’t outweigh all the good things he saw on her. They bothered Dean a little, but maybe because he was irritated by Jess’ existence in general. He’d never had to compete for Sam’s affection before, not seriously.

He really needed to get over that. Jess was a great gal and she made Sam happy. That was what he needed to focus on.

They weren’t in the kitchen, they weren’t in the living room. There was only one place left to check. Dean hesitated with his hand on the bedroom’s doorknob, but in the end, he decided he was already there. He might as well annoy his little brother.

“Samuel, Jessica!” he called out in a sing-song tune as he pushed open the bedroom’s door. “Rise and shine, sleepyheads…”

The words died in his mouth.

The bed was empty and unmade, like someone had slept in it. The night-table was tipped over on the floor, with the lamp broken and thrown away on the floor. The curtain flapped on the soft morning breeze, the window wide open… because the glass was shattered. Dean stared at the glistening shards spread all over the carpet, as a terrible feeling of panic rose in his stomach.

Was that red stain on the sheets… blood?

“Fuck!”

He dropped the donuts box on the floor and took out his cellphone. He already knew it was futile, but he started calling Sam’s phone again.

“Come on,” he begged. “Come on, Sammy, pick up!”

There were bells ringing in his ear now, and it took him a second to realize it wasn’t him going crazy with concern. It was Sam’s cellphone, abandoned among the wreckage, with all the missed calls from him and Castiel flashing on the screen.

* * *

Their captors had left them there (wherever there was) alone for the first time in hours. Sam was dizzy and his muscles were tired. He was thinking of Dean again.

Why had they fought? He couldn’t even remember, except that he had said some bullshit and he regretted now, more than anything he had regretted in his life. If he died there, then the last time he’d talked to his brother would have been them fighting about things that didn’t matter anymore. He hated himself for it.

“Sam?”

Jessica’s voice came on from behind him, broken and hoarse from all the screaming she’d done the night before. It didn’t matter. She was alive. She was terrified and Sam would have given his right arm, he would have given anything, to be able to hold her right now. He was chained to a bedframe, with his hands behind his back, wearing nothing but his pajama bottoms. They (whoever they were) had taken them from their beds, they had beaten them while laughing and then…

He didn’t want to think about it. If he thought about it he would break, and he couldn’t do that right now. The itch of the dried blood on his skin was a grim reminder he just had to ignore for now. He needed to be strong for Jess.

“Hey, babe,” Sam said. He forced himself to take in a deep breath so his voice wouldn’t come out trembling. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m here.”

Jessica sobbed quietly. If Sam wasn’t wrong, then she must have been by the other end of the bed, where he couldn’t see her, equally restrained.

“Sam, I’m scared…”

“I know, babe, I know,” Sam told her. “But we’re going to be alright. We’re going to get out of here. I promise.”

He didn’t know how. A part of him feared he was just promising something impossible.

But that was the only thing he could really promise her right now.


	3. Missing

“Let’s go through it again, Mr. Winchester.”

Dean stared daggers into the detective sitting in front of him. They had gone over it at least three times, and he had no idea what else Henriksen (that was his name, right? That was what he’d said he was called?) wanted him to say.

“What’s the point?” Dean asked, looking around the apartment at the policemen in uniforms going through all of Sam’s stuff. “How is that going to help you find my brother?”

Henriksen’s face remained perfectly calm. He must have been used to dealing with hysterical people all the time.

“We don’t know what detail could help,” Henriksen said. “So let’s go through it again.”

Dean crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back on the chair. He hated this. He hated it.

He went through it again. He had brunch with Sam the day before. They’d fought because Dean didn’t want him to move to California. Then he’d gone home. That morning, he’d felt bad so he’d showed up there and Sam and Jess were missing. There was blood on the sheets.

It was a nightmare. Reliving it over and over while Henriksen just stoically wrote down his words was a nightmare. His brother was out there. He could be hurt, he could be… and Dean was sitting there in the kitchen with a guy that seemed in no rush to start looking for him.

It was a nightmare and Dean wanted to scream, to beg for someone to wake him up.

“Someone took them,” Dean said. “They must have. Someone came in through the window and took them. They would never leave like this. Have you contacted Jess’ parents?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Moore are on their way back from their summer retreat,” Henriksen said. His calm was like a cold iceberg in the middle of Dean’s hot concern. “Mr. Winchester, are you aware we’re on a second floor?”

“What’s that have to do with anything?” Dean snapped.

“How could someone possibly have come in through the window to kidnap your brother?”

Dean opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“I don’t know. I don’t know!” he admitted in the end. “But they didn’t take their wallets, their phones, all their clothes are on the closet…”

“Where were you last night, Mr. Winchester?”

The question came like a punch in the face, equally disconcerting and offending.

“Why does it matter?”

“It’s just a routine question,” Henriksen insisted. “Please, just answer.”

“I was home!”

“Any witnesses to that?”

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. He hated having to out himself to strangers, but if it helped find Sammy…

“I was with a guy I met at the Lion’s Den.”

“The guy club?” Henriksen received those news with the same indifference as he did everything else. He didn’t even raise an eyebrow. “Okay. Did this guy have a name?”

“Benny.”

“No last name?”

“We didn’t exchange last names, no,” Dean said, hoping that Henriksen would pick up what he was putting down.

“Very well,” Henriksen said in the end, writing something else down in his notepad. “We’ll take it from here, Mr. Winchester.”

“What, that’s it?”

“That’s it. You’re free to go home.”

“No. No!” Dean shook his head. “What are you going to do? Where are you going to look for Sam?”

“Mr. Winchester, we’ll take it from here,” Henriksen repeated, firmly. “I know you’re worried, but we’re going to do the best we can to locate your brother. You need to get some rest.”

“I’m going to go crazy,” Dean said, shaking his head. “Please, if there’s anything I can do…”

“The best you can do right now is let us do our job,” Henriksen said. He stopped for a second and then added: “Perhaps you can help us by letting all your friends and family know about this, in case Sam contacts any of them.”

Dean wanted to protest that notion. If Sam was in trouble, it didn’t matter what they had fought about the day before, he would contact him first and foremost. But that wasn’t really the point, because someone had obviously abducted him and Jess and they were not going to be able to ask for help, would they?

However, one look at Henriksen’s face made him realize that no amount of protesting and fretting was going to get the detective to tell him or let him do anything else. He hated this, but he needed to let it go for now.

“Fine. Okay,” he said, resignedly. “I’ll ask everyone if they know something and call you if they do.”

“Please, do that. Do you need one of my men to come with you?”

“No, it’s fine,” Dean said, standing up. “Thank you, detective.”

His knees were trembling and weak, but he managed not to stumble as he headed for the door. He walked past the police officers in uniform parked on the building’s entrance, drinking their coffee. They were talking, but Dean didn’t have the presence of mind to pay attention to what they were saying. He got inside of his car and drove away, still feeling like he was moving through a dream, through a nightmare that just wouldn’t end.

He didn’t fall apart until he was safely alone in his place.

“Sam,” he muttered to himself, grabbing unto his head. “Where the hell are you?”

* * *

Meg’s house wasn’t what Castiel had imagined. Then again, he wasn’t sure what he had imagined. She had stayed with him for so long she had almost become another feature of his own apartment and he could scarcely imagine her in any other setting. Much less in a huge Georgian style home thirty minutes outside of town.

The electric gate opened to let Benny’s car (Castiel didn’t bother to ask if it was really his car or if he’d stolen it from somewhere) in. The house grew in size as they drove closer to it, on a gravel path that slithered across the open grounds. The bushy trees hid the house, but as soon as they stopped in front of it, there was no denying it anymore.

It wasn’t just a house. It was a mansion.

“Seriously?” Castiel asked, looking up at the three stories that loomed over him, with dozens of windows all staring at him like eyes.

Meg seemed a bit embarrassed.

“Well, you know… when you live as long as we do, we tend to hoard some riches.”

“I’d say!” Castiel said, shaking his head. “What… why did we stay in my place all of this time?”

“It was cozier,” Meg replied, with a shrug. “It smelled like you.”

Benny closed the trunk and handed Castiel his duffel bag, sparing him from having to think too hard about that comment.

“Do you need to feed?” Meg asked him.

“I fed last night,” Benny replied, with a shrug. “So if you need me, I’m going to be in the home theater.”

“You have a home theater?” Castiel asked.

“And a pool room. And an actual pool,” Meg said. The keys jingled as she opened the door. She crossed the darkened lobby and entered a code in an alarm panel. “Also a library. I have some volumes there you might want to check out.”

Despite the panic and the stress, despite having to call everyone he cared about and tried to say goodbye to them without them realizing what he was doing, Castiel still experienced something akin to excitement at the idea. Meg had been alive for so long, she had met some amazing writers when she lived in England, she probably had rare first editions and…

He shook his head. He would have all the time in the world to see that later on.

“I think I’m a bit tired,” he said.

They hadn’t left his apartment until the sun had gone down, but between the calls, convincing Hannah and Gabriel that this was a perfect time to go out of town and visit Aunt Amara, and making his bags, he had barely slept a wink. Meg had no trouble believing that excuse. She grabbed Castiel’s hand.

“I’ll show the bedroom.”

Benny waved at them and disappeared around a corner while she guided Castiel towards some stairs.

“This place is amazing,” Castiel pointed out. He couldn’t see much of it, because Meg hadn’t bothered to turn on the lights. She didn’t need them and he didn’t want to bother her with a request like that.

“I bought it on impulse for dumb sentimental reasons,” Meg explained. “It looked a little like the house I lived in with my father when I was human. Remodeling took some decades, but it was fun.”

Castiel was fascinated. A part of him itched to run around the house and ask Meg for details on everything that it contained. She was like a book that contained surprises every time he turned the page and he wanted to know every single one of them. This was just a new chapter she was revealing to him.

He stopped himself, though. There would be time.

“Here we are.”

Her bedroom was just as elegant as the rest of the house, as elegant as Meg herself. She had a four-post bed with white curtains, a huge Victorian wardrobe on one corner, a vanity mirror and an ebony desk.

“What?” Meg asked, when she noticed Castiel chuckling.

“Nothing, it’s just… this is exactly what I imagined a vampire’s bedroom would be like.”

She looked around, as if she’d just noticed that and laughed as well. She grabbed Castiel’s duffle bag to put it away while he moved to look out of the window. He could see the huge pool in the backyard, the stars and the moon reflecting on its dark waters.

It was beautiful. All of it. It didn’t seem like a bad place to spend eternity at all, especially since she was there.

Her arms snaked around his waist and she placed her chin on his shoulder.

“You’re _thinking_ ,” she pointed out.

Castiel had told her many times he didn’t like her reading his thoughts and he knew that Meg tried to give him some privacy in his own mind, but she couldn’t help but catch bits and pieces sometimes. He turned around to face her and pulled her closer to him. She seemed so small in his arms, but he knew she could do untold damage to him if she wanted.

He didn’t care. He wasn’t scared. He had never been scared of her, not even when he’d realized what she truly was.

“Benny said a very valid thing,” he said. “I still don’t know why you chose me.”

Meg tilted her head, pensively.

“After I left England, I decided I couldn’t have human friends anymore. It was… too hard to see them grow old and die, knowing I could never tell them who I really was, what I was. I felt lonely and I wanted a coven, but I didn’t want to turn anyone against their will, the way Luc did to me.” She placed a hand on his cheek. “I didn’t know, all this time, I had been waiting for someone like you. You… I told you all the things I did, even the bad ones, and you chose to love me anyway.”

“How could I not?” Castiel asked, leaning until his forehead was placed against hers. “You’re… amazing.”

“See, that’s exactly what I mean.” She laughed. “In more than three hundred years, no one had ever just… accepted me the way you did. Not my father, not my brother, not Luc or Armin. Even Benny had trouble getting over my past. You… you just saw me for who I was and you didn’t run away screaming. I think that’s worth holding on to.”

It broke his heart a little that she had never felt loved like this before. He held her closer, overwhelmed, trying to find the words. But all he could muster was:

“I love you. I want to be with you forever.”

“We will,” she promised him. “As soon as this issue is dealt with…”

“That’s… that’s not what I mean, Meg.”

Meg moved away and stared at him quizzically for a moment before she understood what he was telling her. She shook her head.

“No.”

“Meg, this might be the only way that I’m safe…”

“You don’t understand, Cas,” she interrupted him. “A newborn vampire is hard to control, they’re maddened by the thirst. If we had nothing else to be worried about right now… well, to be quite honest, I wouldn’t turn you even then.”

That gave Castiel pause. In the past, Meg had talked about making him her mate and turning him with the same ease that someone in a normal relationship would talk about the possibility of getting married. It was simple the next step in sharing their lives together, wasn’t it? Then why wouldn’t she…?

She gave him a kiss and didn’t even try to hide that she was reading his thoughts.

“Would you be willing to give up everything right now?” she asked him. “Your career, your family, your friends, would you be willing to never see them again?”

Castiel thought he was. He had been mentally preparing himself for it, but it was one thing to think, logically, that this was the best for the both of them… and another to look at Meg in the eye and attempt to lie to her that he was ready to leave his human life behind. She wouldn’t even have to read his mind to see right through him.

He said nothing. She sighed and put her arms around his neck to pull him closer.

“Don’t get me wrong, darling. I want to give you the gift, I want to not have to worry about you dying every day. But not before you’re sure you want it. And not because you’re scared of Luc, of all people.” She gave him another kiss, this one on the edge of his lips. “I want it to be on your own terms, not on his.”

“It is difficult not be concerned, though.”

“I’m not going to lie and tell you there’s nothing to fear,” Meg said. “But this will pass and we’ll have peace. And you’ll be able to think about it with a clear mind then.”

She sounded so confident Castiel was almost convinced.

“What if it takes me a while to come around it?” he asked. “Will you wait for me? If it takes me five years, ten? Forty?”

“I already waited for you three hundred years,” Meg said, with a shrug. She wasn’t being hyperbolic or romantic for the sake of it, he knew it. She was just stating a fact.

“What if I only decide to become a vampire when I’m old and decrepit?”

“Then you’ll be the handsomest white-haired vampire the world has ever seen.”

He laughed and a smiled bloomed on her lips. Despite the fear, despite the urgency, Castiel felt like something had settled between them. The good mood that Tom had corrupted with his very presence had returned and he could finally hug Meg again, without the fear that had been bumping on the back of his mind all that time.

Meg kissed him again, hot and insistent, and grabbed his hand to pull him towards the bed. She had been so careful with him before, because she didn’t want to risk hurting him, but it was like a dam had broken and now her desire, for him, for his blood, for everything he was, had come out and she didn’t care to contain it anymore.

Castiel fell on the bed with her and saw himself reflected in his eyes. He understood what Meg had said about acceptance. He hadn’t taken his clothes of yet, but he felt naked- There was no trace of shame in it, though, in what they were doing in each other’s arms.

He had fumbled before with some girls, clumsy and inexperienced, but Meg was different. She wasn’t afraid to guide his hands, to ask for what she wanted in half-breathed whispers. He closed his eyes and let all this desire, all this passion flow as he stretched his arms over her head so she could take his shirt off…

His cellphone chimed inside of his bag. Meg groaned out in irritation.

“Are you serious right now?”

Castiel raised his head from where he had hid it between her breasts.

“I could always let it go to voicemail…”

Meg made a pause, as if she was considering it, but she ultimately shook her head.

“No, you should pick up.”

Castiel sighed with frustration. He really just wanted to go back to what they were doing, but if there was no other remedy…

He was confused to see it was Dean calling him.

“Hello?”

“Did you manage to talk to Sam?”

The sudden question and the panic in Dean’s voice set the alarm in Castiel’s mind immediately.

“No. I thought you were going to…”

“They can’t find him,” Dean informed him. “No one can… Cas, no one has seen them since yesterday. Their room was a mess and the police don’t believe…”

“Dean. Dean, stop,” Castiel said. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“Someone took Sam and Jess!” Dean exclaimed. “I don’t know how, I don’t who, but they… they just wouldn’t disappear like this!”

A sudden coldness had settled in the pit of Castiel’s stomach, but he tried to sound calm as he sat back down on the bed.

“Tell me what happened. From the beginning.”

* * *

Sam had lost the notion of time.

He was vaguely aware that he had been in that room for hours, maybe more than half a day, but he had no way of knowing exactly how long it had been. He was sore and uncomfortable, no matter how much he shifted positions in the limited range of motion he had. His wrists and hands were numb. His mouth was dry and he had trouble focusing his sight.

Not that there was much to see. Their captors had taken them to some sort of… basement? No, there was a window that had been clumsily covered so barely a beam of sunlight would come in. Other than the bedframe they had been tied to, however, there was nothing else in the dark room.

“Sam?” Jessica called out. Her voice was hoarse and broken, like she had to stifle a cry every time she spoke. Sam was just relieved that she was still there, that they hadn’t taken her away when she was unconscious.

That they hadn’t done to her the same thing they did to him.

“I’m here, babe.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why are you saying sorry?”

“It was my fault you fought with Dean,” Jessica explained. “I’m sorry.”

“Jess, no,” Sam told her. “That wasn’t your fault. I promise.”

He was worried, though. If they hadn’t fought, then he would’ve talked to Dean that morning. Sent him a text or something of the sort, just checking in with him as he did every day. He wasn’t sure Dean would try to do that now that they had parted ways so angry with each other. They really hadn’t had a fight like that since Dean had hit on Sam’s prom date when they were teens.

Sam hated the idea that his older brother wasn’t coming to the rescue. He wouldn’t notice they were missing, he wouldn’t call anyone to help them…

Jessica must have been thinking the same thing, because she asked:

“What do you think they want? Is it money? My parents will pay any amount they want…”

Sam bit the inside of his cheek.

His memories of the attack were fuzzy. He had been sleeping peacefully once second and then the next he had been dragged out of his bed by the throat. Jess had screamed, or at least he thought he heard scream right before someone had hit him in the head and he’d gone unconscious. He hadn’t even had the chance to defend her.

He’d woken up in a room much like this one, tied up to another bed, when someone had thrown a glass of water on his head.

“Wakey, wakey…” a female voice had said in his ear while Sam shuddered and shook like a dog.

That was the first time he had taken a good look at his captors. “Good” might have been an overstatement, though, as the only light coming in had been the streetlight outside of the window. They hadn’t bothered to wall that one, so he could still make out that there were at least three people in that room with him, two men and the woman who was kneeling next to him. Her nails had raked through Sam’s chest and hair, as soft as the mockery of a lover’s touch.

“Oh, he’s pretty, Luc!” she’d said. “Can I play with him?”

“Later, Lilith,” the man sitting on a couch in front of him had replied. “We need to ask him some questions.”

He’d signaled to the man behind him. He’d come closer and Sam had tried to register as many details of his face as he could: he had a scruffy beard, black hair and eyes…

They were empty, dark. Eyes without a soul behind them.

He had a hammer in his hands.

“So, are you Sam Winchester?” the man in the couch had asked.

Sam’s brain was still trying to catch up to the situation, so maybe that was why he’d answered like a little punk instead of trying to preserve himself.

“Who wants to know?”

The man in the couch raised his hand. The hammer his henchman held had descended straight on Sam’s big toe. The pain was more surprising than anything else, but he’d still screamed out before he could contain himself.

“Did you know there are over two hundred bones in the human body?” the other man, the leader, had commented, in the same casual tone anyone would use to speak about the weather. “That gives us two hundred opportunities for you to answer. Or, four hundred, if we count the ones of that pretty blonde you had with you.”

“Jess?” Sam had felt a jolt of panic surging through him right then. He could take whatever they wanted to do to him, but the thought of them hurting her…

“Yeah, her, whatever she’s called,” the leader had said, rolling his eyes. “Anyway, are you going to be a good little human and answer our questions now?”

The way he’d said human was weird. Like it was an insult, like he despised Sam just for being so.

Sam had swallowed the bile that’d risen up to his throat.

“Yes.”

“Good!” The leader had smiled and leaned over. His cold grey eyes were the only thing Sam could really see. “Are you Sam Winchester?”

“Yes.”

“And do you know a guy named Castiel Novak?”

That’d disconcerted him.

“Cas?”

“We’ve been told that you shared a dorm and were tight.”

“Who told you that?” Sam had asked, but one glance at the man with the hammer had stopped him from asking any further questions. Not that he’d expected them to answer anyway. “What do you want with him?”

“I’m sure you don’t want to hear the answer to that, pretty boy,” the man with grey eyes had replied. “No, if you were so kind to tell us where we can find him…”

“No,” Sam had said, without hesitation. He didn’t know who these people were, he didn’t know what they wanted with Cas. But judging by the way they had treated him and Jess, it couldn’t be anything good. “I’m not going to do that.”

The leader had clicked his tongue, like he was disappointed in Sam.

“Well, guess we’ll have to go about this the hard way, then.”

That was when the worst part had started. He was sure the man with the hammer had almost enjoyed it, breaking his fingers and toes, and when he was done with them, he’d taken a big hunting knife and started carving figures into Sam’s chest. All while the men with grey eyes looked at him, with a bored expression in his face, with the blonde woman who’d asked to play with Sam sitting in his lap.

Sam had screamed. He’d shouted at them, he’d cursed them, called them all sorts of names as he closed his eyes and tried to fight off the pain. Cas was his friend and he wasn’t going to betray him, he wasn’t going to tell these psychopaths where to find him…

“We’re getting nowhere, Luc,” the torturer had said after a while. “Maybe we should try the girl.”

That had been enough to break through the fog of Sam’s pain.

“No, no!” he’d screamed. “No, you leave her alone!”

He might have given his weakness away too easily. The man with the grey eyes, Luc, had tilted his head with sudden interest in his face.

“Oh? Why would I do that, boy?” he’d asked. “You have something to offer us in exchange?”

Sam had gritted his teeth. He’d realized he had no choice. He either gave up his friend or he allowed the love of his life to be tortured the way he was being tortured. Neither option was good, but at least Castiel could still see them coming, he could still keep himself safe.

Jessica was there, at the mercy of these people, and who knew what they would do to him?

Sam had made a choice and prayed that it was the right one.

“I’ll give you Cas’ address,” he’d promised. “Just… just don’t hurt her.”

“Fair enough,” Luc had replied.

After he’d finished speaking, Luc had got up from his seat.

“All yours, Lilith,” he’d told the woman, who seemed as delighted as a kid who had been told they could have an extra piece of candy.

Sam had kept his eyes on the two men as they stepped out of the room.

“We should go now. Strike before she even knows we’re here…”

“You’ve always been so impatient, Tom,” Luc had replied, in the tone of a teacher gently correcting a student. “She’s not going to go anywhere and I really, really want our reunion to be…”

Sam couldn’t hear anymore, because Lilith was now sitting on his lap, beaming at him with teeth that looked eerily white and sharp in the dim light.

“So pretty,” she’d said, running a finger down Sam’s cheek. She’d caressed his neck, his shoulders, and finally reached his chest, where she’d dipped her fingers in his wounds. Sam had tensed up and bitten his lips, horrified when he’d noticed her licking the blood from her fingertips. “So tasty!”

She’d grabbed him by the hair. The last thing he’d felt before passing out where her teeth, sinking on his neck. And that had hurt worse than anything Tom and his hammer could have done to him.

He didn’t tell any of this to Jessica when he’d woken up in the same room as her. How could he even explain it when he wasn’t certain of what exactly had happened? Why had Lilith’s bite hurt worse than anything else? Why on earth had she had done something like that?

And what the hell had Castiel got himself into?

He had no way of finding the answers to those questions. So all he could do was keep telling Jess that everything would be alright. It had been an entire day. He was tired, he was hungry, he was almost delirious. But he needed to stay awake for her.

In case they came in to try and hurt them again.

“Jess…”

Jess stopped her sobbing suddenly.

“Do you hear that?”

He did. There were steps and voices coming towards their door. It sounded like an argument, though it took him several minutes to make out the words.

“…I don’t know where he is!” a woman was saying. It wasn’t Lilith, Sam was sure. He would never forget Lilith’s almost infantile, mocking tone. “He’s not answering his phone, he’s not…”

“What did that moron do?!”

It was Luc’s voice, but it sounded different. The calm, collected tone he’d used with Sam the day before was gone, and instead he was almost shouting, furious. Sam shrank in his place. If Luc had been terrifying the day before, when he’d watched Sam get tortured with utter indifference, he couldn’t imagine how much worse he could be now.

“He said he was going to make you proud. Luc, listen to me…”

The door burst open and Luc marched inside, followed closely by a brunette woman with olive skin.

“You were supposed to make him stay, Ruby!”

“I tried!” Ruby argued. She sounded almost like she was about to cry. “I really did, but he wouldn’t listen to me!”

“He probably went after them,” Luc said, shaking his head. “He must have.”

“Well, if he did and he succeeded, wouldn’t he back by now?” another voice asked. Lilith was standing by the door. She wore the same white dress as the day before, blood stains and all. She sounded almost worried.

“Unless the idiot got himself killed.”

Both women went suddenly quiet at Luc’s assertion.

“No, he wouldn’t… Meg wouldn’t…”

“You said she was weak!” Lilith argued. “You said she couldn’t…”

“Well, darling, the thing is, Tom hasn’t been back since yesterday night,” Luc interrupted her. He walked towards Sam and grabbed a handful of his hair, forcing him to look up at him. “And your friend’s apartment was empty.”

Sam swallowed, but tried not to blink under that furious gaze. Castiel must have known. He must have ran away. That was the only thing that made sense.

The relief he felt at the knowledge was short-lived when he realized that meant both him and Jess had outlived their usefulness.

“Where could he have gone?” Luc asked, pressing a finger in one of the wounds of Sam’s chest. The pain was so sudden and so great that a scream escaped his throat.

“No!” Jessica shouted behind him. “No, don’t touch him!”

“Where is he?!” Luc demanded to know, his fingernails cruelly sinking in Sam’s chest until droplets of blood bloomed on his skin. “Where is Castiel?”

Sam bit down on his tongue, hoping one pain would distract him from the other as his mind raged.

“I don’t know!” he shouted.

“Are you absolutely sure, lover boy?” Luc said. He pressed further and another wave of pain went through Sam’s body, weakened body, leaving him dizzy and confused. “Do you have no idea where he could be?”

“I don’t know!” Sam repeated, or at least he tried to, because he wasn’t sure his dried throat and tongue were making words anymore. All he could do was shout, was tried not to let the pain of Luc’s fingernails overwhelm him.

“Come on, now!” Luc insisted. “There must be somewhere, someone…”

“He has a brother!”

Jessica’s voice came cutting like a sword. Immediately, Luc back down, leaving Sam to breathe hard, to sob.

It took him a second to realize that Luc was walking around the bed. There came the tinkling of chains and then Jess shouted. Sam looked over his shoulder to see how Luc dragging Jess to her feet and pushing her against the wall. She shivered in her pajama shorts and the oversized shirt that had belonged to Sam. Despite Luc’s brusque manners, when he brushed aside a lock of her messy hair, he did it almost gently.

“Repeat that,” he requested, softly.

“Castiel, he has… he has brother. And a sister,” Jessica said. She looked pale and her cheeks were dirty and wet with tears. “He could have… gone to them.”

“I see,” Luc said, nodding. “And do these siblings of him have names? Don’t lie to me, girl,” he added, his hand coming to rest on Jess’ throat. “I’ll know it if you do.”

Jess swallowed. Her eyes were wide with panic when she glanced in Sam’s direction. He wanted to tell her that no, she couldn’t tell them, she couldn’t betray Cas like that.

But he understood why she was doing it. She was trying to save Sam from this horror, the same way Sam had tried to save her.

“Gabriel,” she said. “And Hannah.”

“Gabriel and Hannah. Very well.” Luc patted Jess on the cheek, an almost paternal gesture. “Thank you.”

“Will you let us go now?” Jess asked.

The inkling of hope in her voice was the worst part. It was almost as bad as Luc’s grin.

“Oh, yes, darling. It’ll be over soon.”

His teeth flashed in the weak light. Jess cried out in pain and writhed in Luc’s arms as he buried his face in her neck, trying to push him away, to kick him to escape.

“No, no!” Sam shouted, struggling uselessly against his chains. “No, stop!”

It took forever. It was only a few seconds, maybe a minute at the most. When she finally stopped screaming, when her arms fell lax at her sides, Luc moved away. His lips and chin were red with Jess’ blood, the same blood that gushed from the wound on her neck and stained her clothes. Her body fell to the ground with a thud when he let her go.

“Jess?” Sam called her, desperate. “Jess!”

Her eyes were open, but she wasn’t moving. Was she breathing? Was she…?

“Get rid of them,” Luc instructed Lilith and Ruby. “We have other businesses to attend to.”

He stepped over Jess’ body as he headed for the door, as if she wasn’t more important than a piece of trash.

Sam couldn’t even fight back as Ruby and Lilith knelt in front of him. All the anger, all the fear that had kept him awake and going despite everything their captors had put him through had suddenly frozen, with a deeper terror in his gut, a grief so deep in his chest that paralyzed him. He couldn’t take her eyes off Jessica, of the love of her life, laying lifeless on the dirty ground of that abandoned house.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. They were supposed to get married, to grow old together, to…

Someone put a hand on his cheek and forced him to look away from Jess. Ruby, the brunette, stared at him with something that looked almost like compassion, like pity, in her eyes.

“It’s going to be okay, Sam,” she promised him. “You'll barely feel it.”

Sam didn’t even have time to cry before Lilith lunged for his neck again.


	4. The Turning

Benny had seen the movie when it premiered and then at least two dozen more times since, but the final scene still made him tear up. Meg would call him a sap, but there was something about the stoic pain in Humphrey Bogart’s voice, in the devastation of Ingrid Bergman’s face that touched something deep inside him.

“It doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.” He held Ingrid’s chin up and gave her a sad smile. “Now, now. Here’s a looking at you, kid.”

It was the best part of the movie, of any movie ever conceived by mankind.

That was the reason Benny was so furious when his cellphone rang right in the middle of it, killing the ambient. He’d stared at the thing, considering just throwing it away, but his curiosity got the better of him. No one reached him through it, except for Meg, but the screen informed him this was an unknown caller.

“How did you get this number?” he asked, fully expecting it to be Boris or one of his minions, calling him to mock him for some reason.

What the voice at the other end said disconcerted him a little:

“Mr. Benjamin Lafitte? This is Detective Victor Henriksen. I’m sorry to bother you, but I have some questions for you.”

Detective. What the hell. He had been very careful disposing of Tom’s body, but even then, how could they have possibly…?

“It’s regarding Dean Winchester.”

“Dean?” Benny repeated, more confused with every word.

“Does the name ring a bell?”

Benny paused the movie. This needed his entire attention.

“I met him at the Lion’s Den yesterday. I bought him a drink, we talked for a while. Then we went to his place and had a lovely night together.”

He saw no reason to lie about it, and besides, if he was honest, maybe he could ask the detective some questions of his own.

“I see. Can you tell me which time did you leave Mr. Winchester?”

“It must have been… early in the morning,” Benny said, cautiously. It had been much earlier than that, but he wasn’t going to explain why he had to leave. “Is Dean in trouble? Is he okay?”

“He’s fine, Mr. Lafitte. It’s his brother we’re worried about. Mr. Winchester reported him missing this morning.”

“Huh,” Benny said, before he could stop himself.

It could be a coincidence. Then again, he had lived long enough to know that was a thing human told themselves when they didn’t want to confront that something was very wrong with the picture right in front of them.

“Did he mention something about that to you?”

“Only that he was upset because of a recent disagreement they’d had,” Benny explained. “You never answered my question.”

“Your question…?”

“My number. I didn’t give it to Dean.”

“Oh.” Detective Henriksen stayed quiet for a few seconds, as if he was considering if Benny really needed that information. “We checked the cameras at the Lion’s Den and spotted you leaving with Mr. Winchester. Then we cross-referenced the time with the payments made with your credit card.”

Benny tucked away that information in his mind. Even something as simple as paying with his credit card had been enough for this human to track him. He wasn’t paranoid, but he feared Boris could have eyes and everywhere. And if he did, that meant Luc did as well.

“Well, that’s very diligent of you, detective.”

“Thank you.”

“I hope this can be solved soon.”

“I will try to. If you have any other information…”

Benny thanked him again as if Henriksen had done him a favor by contacting him and ended the call. He was already convinced he needed to go see what, if anything, he could do about that even before he left the home theater and started climbing the stairs, only to stop when he saw Meg and Castiel coming down at the exact same time.

Castiel looked scared.

“We have a problem,” Meg said.

Coincidences didn’t exist and if they did, this was an enormous one.

Dean, his Dean, his beautiful boy with green eyes, was a friend of Castiel’s. As was his currently missing brother, Sam.

“Dean says he’s been checking in with anyone and no one has heard of him or Jess,” Castiel explained, pacing around the lounge with increased anxiety. “The only one of Sam’s friends he hasn’t been able to contact is Brady. He’s kind of a douche, but he introduced Sam to Jess, so it’s weird that he isn’t answering either.”

“Is there a chance something happened to him as well?” Meg suggested.

“We don’t know if anything happened to Sam!” Castiel protested, though it was clear by his tone that he didn’t believe his own words. “And we don’t know if anything happened to Brady. He might be away on a trip to the Bahamas in his dad’s yacht or something.”

“We lose nothing by finding out for sure,” Benny said. “Do you have Sam or Brady’s address?”

“You’re going to go alone?” Meg asked him.

“It’d be best if your boy stays with you,” Benny stated. He hesitated and then added: “Perhaps the best thing you can do right now is go with Dean.”

Meg didn’t look convinced, but Castiel was very on board with the idea.

“Sam and Dean have no other family and Dean doesn’t exactly get along with Jess’ parents. He’s probably going crazy right now.”

It was better that way. If Sam really was in trouble, the last person he would want to see was the guy he’d hooked up with the night before. Benny dropped them off at Dean’s building and drove the few blocks that separated him from Sam’s building.

There was a policeman on the building’s door and, and he must have been alert, not in the right frame of mind to be tricked or seduced. So Benny chose to climb the side of the building, cloaking himself in shadows. In a minute more, he had pulled aside the tape that marked the place as a crime scene and sneaked in through the window. No, a vampire would really have no trouble to get in there.

It didn’t surprise him at all to smell the strangers as soon as he set a foot inside. They had done nothing to hide their visit there. Three, maybe four of them. Definitely not Boris’ people. He had only smelled Tom once he was dead, but he definitely recognized he had been there recently, maybe a day before.

Meg’s worst fears were true. And if she was right about the kind of monster Luc was, then so were Dean’s.

Now he had their smell, though… it had been a while since he tracked another vampire like this. And, of course, he wouldn’t do anything without Meg’s back up. But Luc had another thing coming if he thought he could just stroll into Benny’s city and make trouble without retaliation.

* * *

Dean laid down on his couch and closed his eyes, but he already knew that he wasn’t going to sleep. He had spent all afternoon calling people up, telling them about Sam, making Internet posters, racking up his brain thinking about anyone he might have forgotten to hit up and resisting the urge to call Detective Henriksen to know if he’d heard something.

He’d had a long chat with Jess’ folks in the afternoon that hadn’t been exactly encouraging.

“Whatever trouble Sam is in…”

“Do you think this happened because of Sam?” Dean had asked, furious.

He could hear Mrs. Moore crying inconsolably in the background as Mr. Moore said:

“Jess has never hurt anyone in her life. If something happened to her because of him…”

Dean had ended the call without adding another word. He was furious with them. Sam had always treated Jess like a queen, he had always been willing to do anything for her. It would never be enough for her parents, though. Just because Sam was the son of a poor mechanic and had got into college on a scholarship instead of being a damn legacy like Jess and their friends…

He got up from the couch and started pacing around. There was no way he was sleeping. He couldn’t distract himself with anything, he couldn’t even function knowing that Sam was in trouble and…

He opened the kitchen cabinets and found a half empty bottle of whiskey. He hesitated. He definitely wanted to b sober in case Detective Henriksen called, but at the same time, his nerves were killing him.

One glass wouldn’t hurt.

He poured the whiskey nearly to the brim and was about to drink it down when his intercom rang, startling him.

“Dean, it’s me,” Castiel’s gravelly voice called him on the other side. “Let us up.”

Dean barely had time to put on a shirt and kick around some of the mess in his kitchen before his friend was there at his door. Cas hugged him without skipping a beat and in that small gesture, Dan would’ve broken up, just start telling him exactly how worried and confused he was.

But Cas wasn’t alone.

“Hello.”

“Dean, this is my girlfriend, Meg,” Castiel introduced her. “I told you about her.”

If by telling him about him he meant mentioning her in passing exactly once…

She wasn’t the kind of girl Dean expected Cas to date, either. He’d imagined a shy, library girl, with wool sweaters and big glasses and just and all around demure look and attitude. Meg dressed like a rockstar, with jeans, a purple blouse and a black leather jacket. She had blood red lips and a pale face, with dark circles under her eyes as if she wasn’t in the habit of sleeping regularly. She quickly offered Dean her hand.

“Nice to meet you,” she said, with a deep, smoky voice.

“Likewise… woah, is it cold outside?” he asked, moving his hand away. Meg’s skin was strangely cool, like they’d just come in walking through a snowstorm or something.

“Have they told you anything?” Castiel asked as he and Meg strode inside.

“No, not really,” Dean told him. “There hadn’t been like any… ransom calls or…”

“Well, of course not,” Meg muttered.

Dean turned to look at her. She was in his kitchen and helping herself to her whiskey, pretty unperturbed. It made him irrationally angry. Of course, Sam’s disappearance had nothing to do with her, but still… she could show some empathy.

“What Meg means to say is… it’s probably too soon to really know what’s going on,” Cas said.

“Yeah, that’s what I meant,” she added, but there was an underlying tone of sarcasm in her voice. Was Cas not really picking up on this? “Have you eaten?”

Dean opened his mouth to ask what that had to do with anything, but Meg tilted her head at him. And it was like all of his concern, all of his stress, exhaustion and, yes, hunger, fell on top of him at the same time. His knees trembled and he had to hold on to the wall for balance.

“Dean?” Castiel asked, concerned.

“I… yeah, I really haven’t…”

“Told you,” Meg said, as she poured herself more whiskey. “I can always tell when someone is low on blood sugar.”

Castiel shot her a quizzical look and Meg just grinned back at him. Dean had the impression he’d just missed an inside joke of some kind.

“Go sit down,” Castiel said. “I’ll order some takeout.”

Dean was so numb at this point in the day that he just let him. Normally, he would have his mom’s voice in the back of his head, telling him he was being a terrible host, and he would be offering them beverages or appetizers, anything to make them feel welcome.

This time, however, he just flopped down on his couch with a sigh and let them have free reign over their kitchen. He closed his eyes. Castiel’s voice came floating from the distance, and he couldn’t quite make out the words, but he figured he was ordering something. Maybe he should offer to pay. He opened his eyes, ignoring the wave of nausea and…

Meg was sitting in front of him, over his coffee table. She had her legs crossed and yet another glass of whiskey in her hand. She stared at him with a perfectly delineated eyebrow arched.

“Tell me something,” she said. “Have you had any guests here recently?”

His night with Benny felt like it had been eons ago. However, Dean crossed his arms over his chest, defensively.

“What’s it to you?”

“I’m just asking,” Meg replied, with a shrug. “We might just have more friends in common than we thought.”

Dean tried to figure out what exactly she meant by that, but he was so exhausted that it was like her words slipped and fell off the edge of his brain.

“Look, I’m… I’m really worried about my brother right now, so…”

“I would say,” Meg replied, taking a sip of his whiskey. “What about the other boy?”

“What other boy?”

“Brady? The one you couldn’t contact?”

“What does it matter?” Dean asked, a little ticked off.

“They’re friends, aren’t they? Your brother and this Brady guy?” Meg continued asking.

“No, not really. Not lately, at the very least,” Dean explained. “Maybe he was different when they were all freshmen, but the last couple of years? Brady’s been getting into all sort of shady stuff. Drugs, alcohol, women. His dad cut him off and Sam tried to get him back on his feet so he wouldn’t drop out, but the guy was a mess. I don’t know even know if they have been keeping contact, but him not picking up the phone and dropping off the face of the earth for a couple of days? That’s not exactly weird.”

Why was he telling her all of this? She didn’t care. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t going to help anyone find Sam.

Meg continued to stare at him for a long moment and then she stood up just as Cas walked into the living room, with his cellphone still in hand.

“They said they’ll be here in ten minutes,” Cas informed them. “I ordered cheeseburgers with extra bacon.”

That sounded so amazing that Dean’s stomach actually growled.

“Cas, can I use your phone for a moment?” Meg requested.

“You don’t have your own?” Dean asked.

“I’m old-fashioned like that,” Meg said. She stared Cas’ phone and started writing in it with only one, long-nailed finger, like she was a little old lady unused to such advanced tech.

Dean was half-tempted to ask Castiel where exactly he’d managed to find this girl when she made a humming sound.

“That’s very interesting,” she muttered.

“What is?”

“Brady’s mother his asking for information about her son,” she said, handing the phone to Dean so he could see for himself. “Apparently, she hasn’t been able to contact him in a week. Clearly, that’s not as normal for him.”

Dean read the post twice, trying to take in exactly what this meant. Three people from Sam’s college, from their circle of friends, had gone missing now. Castiel paled a little as he took his phone again.

“Excuse me, I need to call Gabriel,” he said as he walked out of the room.

“What does this mean?” Dean asked, confused. “Should I call detective Henriksen, let him know about this? Perhaps the people who took Sam had something to with Brady and his shit…”

Meg threw him an indecipherable look. If he knew her any better, he would’ve said that was one of pity.

“Yeah, maybe,” she said, noncommittally. “And maybe you should prepare yourself for a worst case scenario.”

Dean froze.

“What did you say?”

“I’m just warning you, this might not be…”

“No. No, shut up!” Dean said, shaking his head. “Sam’s fine! They’ll find him!”

“Maybe, but…”

“SHUT UP!” Dean repeated. He didn’t mean to raise his voice, but the mere insinuation of what Meg was saying was enough to make him mad. “If you’re going to talk like that, then you can get the hell out of my place!”

“What’s going on?” Castiel asked, coming back and alternating his gaze between him and Meg.

Dean forced himself to take a deep breath and pinched his nose.

“I’m just trying to be realistic here,” Meg said, raising her hands, defensively.

“And I’m telling you, Sam’s fine!” Dean insisted. “He has to be.”

He turned his back on them. He was not going to break, dammit. He needed to keep his head on his shoulders.

“Meg, that’s not really helpful,” Castiel said.

“Well, he needs to accept the possibility…”

“We don’t have to talk about that right now,” Castiel interrupted her. “Dean is already upset and this is not doing him any good.”

Dean would’ve been more appreciative of Castiel trying to shut his girlfriend up if it wasn’t for his tone. It was soft and quiet, like he was trying not to make a child who just discovered Santa isn’t real cry even more.

He slowly turned towards him.

“You think he’s dead, too.”

“No, Dean, I didn’t say that,” Castiel argued, but he didn’t have to say it for Dean to guess that was exactly what he thought. “We don’t know, okay? But… you’re my friend, and whatever happens, I will be here for you.”

Dean opened his mouth to argue he hadn’t asked him to do that, that he didn’t need him and Meg’s negativity around them if they were already planning Sam’s funeral. The intercom rang again before he could say it though.

“That must be the burgers,” Castiel pointed out. “Can I leave the two of you alone for a minute while I go get them?”

Dean and Meg glared at each other for a few seconds.

“Sure.”

“Won’t be a problem.”

Meg walked away from Dean the second Castiel left. It was for the best. Maybe this was Dean’s stress talking, but he really, really didn’t like her.

* * *

“He didn’t need to do that,” Ruby protested. “We could have… I don’t know, used them as hostages or something?”

Lilith stopped looking at her fingernails, but she seemed annoyed about it.

“Why?” she asked, giving Ruby a languid stare.

“I don’t know, it might have been easier to draw Meg out if we did,” Ruby argued.

“Why?” Lilith repeated. “Do you really think he cares about some random humans?”

“I mean, if what they told us is true…”

“But these weren’t _her_ humans,” Lilith said. “So it doesn’t matter.”

Ruby figured it was useless to keep talking about this and just focused on the road ahead of them, both hands grasping the wheel firmly. Lilith and Luc were powerful, they were old and they were cruel. Yes, sometimes that meant they could get whatever they wanted quickly, but it also meant they made plans with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Tom wasn’t much better, either, with the added hindrance that he was stupid and overeager to please Luc.

She missed Meg sometimes. She wasn’t enough of an idiot to say it out loud, of course, but she missed having someone that was on her corner. Lilith and Tom both worshipped the ground that Luc stepped on and she did, too, but not to the same extent. Not enough not to question it sometimes when things like these happened. Meg had also adored him, and perhaps that was why Ruby had revealed to her what Luc had done to her father. To have someone on her corner, someone who would agree with her sometimes when disagreement among the coven erupted.

She’d never imagined Meg would dare to leave them. Even her own blood brother.

And now, to mate with a human… well, she had seen the boy in the pictures.

“He was pretty, though,” Ruby commented out loud.

Luckily for her, Lilith assumed she was talking about the other human boy, the one whose body they were transporting now in their trunk.

“Oh, he was. So tall and broad and thick…”

“It kind of seems like a waste,” Ruby said, quickly hiding her thoughts like she was so used to doing. “If Tom isn’t coming back…”

“We don’t know that yet. And don’t worry, Ruby. I don’t mind sharing Luc until you find a new partner.”

That was, until Luc found someone that he would approve to be Ruby’s partner. This was his coven, of course, and he ruled it with an iron fist. She needed to remember that.

Maybe Meg had had the right idea all those years ago.

No. She couldn’t think like that. Luc and Lilith and yes, even Tom, they were her coven. They had been for centuries before Meg joined them and they would continue being after she was gone for good.

She parked the car next to the river. Luc didn’t care about leaving the bodies of their meals discarded when they were nothing but bums and prostitutes, people no one would miss. These, however… he wanted to send a message.

They opened the trunk. It was almost a sad spectacle, the two bodies of the lovers mangled with each other. The girl had been pretty, too, with her blonde curls and the birth mark right between her eyebrows. Lilith grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her out. Her head lolled to the side and her feet dragged lifeless on the ground.

“You bring the boy,” she instructed Ruby.

Of course, she always left the hard work to others. Ruby sighed and leaned to grab at the boy’s shoulder…

Something wasn’t right. He looked dead. She and Lilith had drained him, she was sure of it, but…

His eyes were fluttering. She put a hand on his chest and waited.

Yes. There it was. Weak and irregular and dimming, but there was a heartbeat there. He was still alive, though barely.

She stared at his face, his strong jaw, his narrow nose. He was so weak that if the threw him in the river he would drown for sure, without ever waking up. Or maybe she could wait a minute or two and he would drift away for good, without ever waking up. It would be a mercy for him, really. She had seen his thoughts, his pain, when he saw the girl die. He didn’t want to live without her and Luc had been more than happy to grant him that wish.

On the other hand… it really seemed a waste.

She bit her own wrist until a stream of blood bloomed through her skin and then held it against his barely-parted lips, letting it drip down his mouth and his throat.

If it worked, she would claim him as her partner. Luc would be pissed he hadn’t consulted it with him, but the boy would be strong. They could convince him it was all Meg’s fault and he would fight with them. He would be much better than Tom, who was always so willing to bend to Luc’s will. He would be _hers_.

There was a splash behind her. She didn’t need to look to know that the waters had swallowed the girl and dragged her away.

“What are you doing?” Lilith asked. “Just bring him over here.”

“I’m coming,” Ruby replied, still looking closely at the boy’s pale face.

Nothing. His heart at been so weak it didn’t have the strength to pump the reviving blood through his veins, to cure his wounds. She had been too late.

With a disappointed sigh, she grabbed his shoulders…

His hazel eyes opened suddenly and gazed at her. Ruby startled, but a warm sensation of triumph extended through her. She started talking, to welcome him to his new life, to explain that she had saved him…

He didn’t give her the chance.

His scream pierced the night, terrified and loud. His hand closed around Ruby’s neck, shaking her like a rag doll as he screamed and screamed and screamed…

She had been right. He was strong. He was scared and fighting her, but as soon as he calmed down, as soon as she could tell him…

Lilith tackled him to the ground. Ruby rolled on the mud of the river’s bank, confused and dizzy as the sounds of two vampires fighting rose. Her mind raced as she understood exactly what was happening.

“No, no!” she shouted as she jumped to her feet.

In the darkness, Lilith and Sam wrestled against each other, rolling and growling as she tried to subdue him and he tried to escape her grip. She jumped in without thinking. He was hers, she’d created him, Lilith had no right to touch him!

She got him off him with a single punch, but then someone punched her in the stomach and she fell backwards, hitting her head with the side of the car, hard enough to dent it. Black spots flashed in her vision, but she still could make out the silhouette of Sam’s back as it disappeared in the distance.

Next thing she knew, Lilith was grabbing her by the arm and pulling her up, furious.

“What the hell did you do?”


	5. Newborn

Sam didn’t know what was going on.

He had vague memories of fighting, of growls, of a wild animal jumping on him. He had fought for his life on pure instinct, something equally wild guiding his movements.

And then he’d run for what felt like hours.

He had no idea where he was or what’d exactly was happening, except for one thing: he was free. His captors, for whatever reason, had let him go.

But where was Jess?

The image of Luc holding her against the wall, biting into her neck, the blood gushing and staining her pajama flashed in his eyes. He closed them, shaking her head.

No. If he was alive, there was a chance she was as well. He just needed to find someone, ask them for help and go back to wherever it was that they had been holding them. And then he could take her home and everything would be alright.

He repeated that to himself as he walked down the open road in front of him. It was a surprisingly clear night, even though he couldn’t see the moon or the stars above his head. The wind whispered in the branches of the trees, but he didn’t feel cold despite not having a shirt or shoes on. He touched his chest, absentmindedly. He found no scabs from the wounds that had been inflicted on him.

He should’ve found that strange, he supposed, but considering everything else, the fact they’d healed fast was, really, the least of his problems. He felt empty, his muscles tired and heavy. His throat was dry. It had been… a day, two? Since he last had anything to eat or drink. It was a miracle that he was still standing and moving, that he had been able to run away from whatever their captors had thrown at him last.

Dean. He needed to call Dean. His brother would know what to do…

The grumble behind him made him stop. A car. Coming down the road fast.

When he turned around and saw the lights approaching, it surprised him to see that it was still so far away. The roaring of the engine had sounded so close he thought that it was practically over him. But it was better this way. He had time to think about what to tell them, to convince whoever was driving to take him back to the city, or to at the very least call for some help.

The car was actually a beige van, with a woman in provocative pose painted on the side of it, tacky as all hell, but to Sam, it was better than a Ferrari or a limousine right at that moment. The door opened and a short, brown-haired man stepped out.

“Hey, man, are you okay?” he asked.

Sam narrowed his eyes. The lights of the van were hurting his eyes. He tried to move slowly, so the guy wouldn’t be scared.

“I’m… I’m…”

“You don’t look so good,” the man continued. “What happened to you?”

“It’s… it’s a long story,” Sam said, taking another step towards him. “I need help.”

“I’d say!” The guy was now approaching him as he spoke: “It’s okay. We’ll call someone and…”

The smell hit Sam all at once, so sudden and so overwhelming that it made his head spin. It was a mixture of them: the sweet scent of marijuana, the cheap aftershave, and something… something else.

It was metallic and enticing, and it became stronger as the man came closer to Sam.

“My name’s Andy,” he said. “What’s yours?”

Sam wanted to speak, he really did, but that smell, that scent, it was all that he could think about. He was drowning in it. His mouth watered, from the thirst and the hunger, and it was all he could think about.

“Man…” Andy kept saying, but Sam couldn’t listen. There was another sound, pulsating and deep, that invaded Sam’s brain just as much as the scent. Regular, pounding…

It was Andy’s heart. He knew it. It became louder and louder as he came closer.

Sam moved his tongue inside of his mouth. Had his teeth always been this sharp?

“… you need to tell me your name… I don’t have a phone, but I can drive you until you… hey, are you listening to me?”

The instinct took over Sam again, stronger now, impossible to contain.

He didn’t want to contain it. He needed it, for sustenance, for survival. The animal in his mind roared as his body lunged forwards.

Andy screamed so loud it pierced through Sam’s ears, and the part of him that was human, and not this hungry beast, almost cared. He was almost horrified as his teeth found the thick vein in his neck, as his teeth like needles rip through the skin.

But then the blood hit his tongue and it was _so good_. Sweet and thick and intoxicating. Sam licked and lapped at it, unwilling to let a single drop escape him, swallowing with gluttony, with despair. He needed it. He needed its warm in his veins, to strengthen his arms so he could hold his prey tighter. With every gulp, he became more powerful, his mind sharper and clearer, all the emotions of fear and sadness disappearing. His knees trembled, of euphoria this time, and he hit the ground holding this kind stranger like a lover.

All that was left was the taste of the blood, of the life-giving blood.

He didn’t even realize it when Andy stopped thrashing in his arms, when the beating of his heart stop. Not until there was no blood left in his body, no matter how much he bit and sucked.

It was only then that reason returned to him.

He moved away. Andy’s face was paralyzed in an expression of confusion and horror, pale and unmoving no matter how much Sam shook him and called his name.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” he kept repeating. “Please, no. No, no, no…”

Every touch of his hand left a bloody imprint on Andy’s clothes. The horrible realization of what he had done slowly dawned on Sam.

He’d killed a man. He’d killed him and he’d… drunk his…

He felt nauseous, but no matter how much he heaved, he couldn’t vomit.

They must have drugged him. Luc and the others, they must have given him some kind of drug. That was why he couldn’t remember what’d happened, why he felt so weird, why he had…

Dean. He needed to go to Dean. Dean would know what to do. He would help, he would know who to call, how to fix this.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered again, as he stood up. “I’m so sorry.”

The keys of the van were still in the ignition. He gripped unto the wheel, breathing in deeply, over and over as he tried to calm his heart. After a few seconds, his bare feet found the accelerator and he drove away.

Leaving the body of the man he’d killed behind.

* * *

A phone rang in the distance, startling Dean awake. It took him a second to realize that wasn’t his ringtone, and someone else had picked up outside of his room.

Castiel, Meg. They were still there. They had made sure he ate, showered and went to bed. Well, Castiel had. Meg had been loitering around his apartment, touching his things and generally just being the embodiment of a black stormy cloud. It wasn’t that Dean didn’t appreciate his friend being there to give him support and all that, but did he really need to bring his goth, angry girlfriend with him?

It didn’t matter. He checked the time: ten in the morning, which meant that he had slept a grand total of five hours. That was five hours more than he thought he was going to get when Cas insisted that he went to bed.

“What about you two?”

“It’s fine,” Castiel had told him. “Meg is a night person.”

He really hoped that Meg wasn’t also the kind of getting grumpy if she didn’t get enough sleep, because whatever that call was about, it was enough to make Castiel speak loudly in a tense tone of voice.

“No. I don’t think I can… I will try to, but my friend… yes, I understand.”

Dean rubbed his eyes, felt up the floor until he found a shirt and opened his door. His friend had already ended the call, and was pacing around in just his jeans. Meg was on the couch, wrapped in the blanket Dean had lent them and seeming slightly irritated.

“What happened?”

“My landlord called. There’s been a break-in in my apartment,” Castiel explained. “Apparently, some of my belongings got destroyed and… well, it doesn’t look good. He wants me to go back to call the police and talk to him about insurance and whatnot.”

Meg stared at him, her eyes wide open in the first emotion that Dean had seen her expressed other than indifference and mild irritation: fear.

“Cas, you can’t…”

“It doesn’t sound like I have much of an option,” Castiel said.

“But…” Meg looked around, like she was searching for an excuse, before her gaze fell upon Dean. “We can’t leave your friend alone right now!”

“Wait a second.” Dean shook his head like a dog that had just come out of water. “First Brady, then Sam, and now someone broke into your apartment? This can’t be a coincidence, can it?”

Meg and Castiel exchanged a look. It was so quick that Dean almost could’ve missed it, but it left him feeling… uncomfortable. With the distinct impression that these two were hiding something from him.

Before he could ask, however, Meg shook her head.

“No. I don’t want to let you out of my sight right now. And we can’t leave Dean alone.”

“Hey, look, I’ll be fine,” Dean said. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

Except that the only reason he was acting sane right now, after two days of Sam being no-show, was that Meg and Castiel had got there to remind him to take care of himself for at least five minutes. He wasn’t going to mention that, but Castiel’s hesitancy might have something to do with that.

“Anyway, I think…” He almost gagged with the next words that came out of his mouth, but they needed to be said: “I think Meg is right. You shouldn’t go alone. Can you call your brother or…?”

“Hannah and Gabriel are both out of town,” Castiel said. “They took an impromptu trip to visit our aunt.”

“We can call Benny,” Meg suggested. “He can stay here or go with you.”

“Benny?” Dean repeated.

“Meg’s, uh… brother,” Castiel clarified.

That had to be coincidence. It had to be. There was no way in the world… there had to be a lot of guys named Benny. Just because his Benny had a sister and Meg’s Benny was her brother, it didn’t mean they were the same person.

Dean wished that reasoning was enough to stop his heart from jumping out of his chest.

“Won’t he be too busy with the thing we asked him to do?” Castiel asked.

“I’m sure he’ll understand this takes priority,” Meg insisted. “If Dean is right and this isn’t a coincidence…”

She arched an eyebrow. It sounded a lot like she believed he was and she wasn’t going to accept Castiel arguing with her about it.

Castiel thought about it for a few seconds more before he nodded.

“I’ll call him right now,” Meg said, standing up and walking away. Castiel automatically handed her his phone a she went.

He noticed Dean staring when he turned around.

“What?”

“Man, she’s got you whipped, doesn’t she?” Dean pointed out. “Where the hell did you find her?”

“I… well, it’s more like she found me.”

Castiel added nothing else, but the dopey, happy grin that appeared in his face immediately made Dean regret having asked him about it. He didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to be wrapped in their happy couple glow when he was feeling miserable and would continue to feel miserable until Sam came home safe and sound.

“That’s great,” Dean said. “I’m gonna make some breakfast.”

Castiel followed him into the kitchen. Meg was hunched in the corner, speaking in almost inaudible whispers that made Dean think of the clicking of a bat.

She was so freaking weird.

“Benny’s on his way,” she announced after hanging up. “I drink my coffee black. No sugar.”

“Of course you do,” Dean said, as he busied himself with the coffee maker.

“Do you need help with that?”

Dean was going to reject him, but then his cellphone did finally sound. Detective Henriksen was calling him and his heart leapt to his throat.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Winchester, there’s been… a development,” Detective Henriksen announced. “We’ve found Jessica Moore.”

“Jess? Where did you find her? Where is she? How is she?”

There was a short pause on the other end.

“She’s dead, Mr. Winchester.”

Dean’s legs suddenly became weak. No, that didn’t make any sense. That couldn’t be true.

He leaned against the counter as Detective Henriksen kept adding details that made no sense.

“She was found by a runner this morning. Her body was floating in the river. The initial cause of death seems to be significant blood loss…”

“Wait. Stop.” Dean shook his head. “She… what? She can’t be…”

“I’m afraid she is,” Detective Henriksen said. “And this changes the circumstances of our search.”

His voice was… different. Before, when he’d interrogated Dean in Sam and Jess’ apartment, he’d been calm and collected to counteract Dean’s growing hysteria. Now, however, he still sounded calm… but in a volatile way. Like he was angry and holding it back because showing it would simply be unprofessional.

“What do you mean? What about Sam?”

“Your brother is now considered a person of interest in the investigation of Miss Moore’s homicide.”

“You can’t be serious!” Dean shouted. “Sam would never…! He would kill himself before hurting her!”

“Calm down, Mr. Winchester…”

“No, you listen to me! You can’t just accuse Sam of something like that!”

“No one is accusing your brother,” Detective Henriksen said, but his tone sounded pretty accusatory to Dean. “But we need to speak to him to understand what happened. If you see him, if he comes to see you, you have to call us immediately.”

Dean’s stomach had turned into a viscous, revolting knot. The kitchen was spinning around over his head, his hands were shaking. This couldn’t be happening. Sam would never hurt Jess. But if Jess was dead and Sam was still missing, that meant something terrible had happened to him as well.

His knees gave out. He slid down to the floor.

“He won’t. He’s dead, too,” he croaked.

“How do you know that?”

“He has to be,” he said. Tears were swelling up in his throat, impossible to contain. “There’s no way something like that happened to Jess and he didn’t…”

He couldn’t go on. His vision was going black. Dammit, Meg had been right. He should have seen this coming.

“We don’t know that yet, Mr. Winchester. In the meantime…”

He said some other things, but Dean was simply not listening to him. There was nothing he could say that would make it through the fog of devastation that had invaded Dean’s brain.

Jess was dead. So was Sam. They hadn’t found him yet, but he knew it in his gut. They either both came back or neither of them did, and now…

“Dean?”

Cas was kneeling in front of him, with a hand on his shoulder. Dean looked down at his phone to see that Detective Henriksen had ended the call. He had to take in several deep breaths to be able to talk without breaking down.

“Jess’ dead. They think Sam did it, but he would never…”

“I know,” Castiel said. “I know he wouldn’t.”

“Cas, he is…”

He didn’t need to go on for Castiel to understand. He pulled him in for a hug, so tight it made Dean's shoulders hurt, but that was exactly what he needed at that moment. He gave himself permission to break, to stop, to let all his sadness wash over him like a wave.

“It’s not fair!” he screamed, furious.

“I’m sorry, Dean.”

“Who would do something like this to them? Why?!”

“I’m so sorry.”

He kept repeating he was sorry, over and over, while Dean cried his eyes out. He wished to tell him that he didn’t need him to be sorry. Being sorry wouldn’t fix anything.

Nothing would.

* * *

Benny followed the scent of Luc and his coven all night, stopping only at the break of dawn to put on sunscreen, his cap and a pair of black sunglasses to protect himself from the light.

It was more complicated than he thought. They had a car, he figured, and they had travelled with the windows up, so he lost the trace several times as he wandered the busy streets. But the more he walked away from the buildings and the commercial districts, the easier it become.

They had taken them some miles north, to what had once been a busy little town that the city had not yet engulfed. The skeletons of the abandoned factories that had given it life and the houses that had belonged to their workers still stood, waiting in an eternal limbo of bureaucratic inefficiency, until someone somewhere signed a paper authorizing their demolition.

Here, the smell of smog and food was replaced by sweat, piss and the garbage that was thrown in the nearby river. Not the most picturesque, but definitely a place where vagabonds, junkies and, yes, vampires, could find refuge. It was bordering Boris’ territory, so it wouldn’t surprise him this was his and his coven’s hunting grounds.

He didn’t think Luc and his people would stay there during the day. If they were anything like Meg, they probably hated that dump. Their smell was all over it, however, in one of the small houses to the left. There were skid marks on the weed-ridden front garden and the door hanged off its hinges. Benny stood there, sniffing the air like a hound, until he was sure that the house was empty.

Only then he made his way inside. One step in and he knew that vampires had fed there. The metallic odor of old blood floated in the air clear as day. The windows had been boarded up and the soft darkness inside was a welcome relief over his castigated skin. Even with the strongest sunscreen, sometimes he would get burned and reddened. A newborn vampire without any sort of protection could sustain some real damage from that sunlight.

There was really nothing of interest in the house. The rooms were empty, except for some old, busted up furniture and piles of dust accumulating in the corners.

Until he got to the last room.

The only thing there was a big, metallic bed. The walls and floor were stained with dried blood, pools of them where two bodies had definitely laid at some point. Benny recognized the smell of the people who had been there. It was the same scent as the one in the apartment.

Sam and Jess had been there. They had probably died there, too.

His cellphone rang inside of his jacket.

“Did you find anything?” Meg asked him in a whisper.

“Many things,” Benny replied. “I don’t think we can hold up too much hope for your boy’s friends.”

“I figured as much,” Meg said, with a sigh. “They’re getting too close, Benny. They broke into Cas’ place and now he has to go deal with all of that.”

“Well, in that case, I think we’re going to need something to defend ourselves,” Benny said. “And to have a long chat with Boris.”

“Yes. A chat. That was exactly what I was thinking,” Meg replied. Her voice had turned practically into a growl. She was furious and with good reason.

“I’m gonna stop by my house and get some weapons,” Benny decided. “We can rendezvous later at your house.”

“Come to Dean’s apartment. Someone needs to go with Cas to his place and I don’t want to leave either of them alone.”

She gave him the address, not knowing that Benny was already familiar with it. He stared at his phone for a few minutes, wondering what, if anything, would Dean say if he saw him again.

Probably nothing. He would be too devastated from his brother’s loss and Benny would be selfish to think that would matter less than their little “hookup”, as young people said those days.

He picture Sam’s smiling face in his mind, as he had seen it in the pictures Dean kept in his apartment. Poor kid. He definitely didn’t deserve any of this and Benny would make sure that the people that had harm him would pay for it. He could never tell Dean about it, of course, but it would help Benny sleep easier at noon.

He popped the cap of his sunscreen, applied some more to his face and left the house quietly. He had taken some steps out of the backyard when he smelled her.

It was one of Luc’s, for sure. She wasn’t far away, in the area where trees and grass had reclaimed the streets and houses. Benny didn’t have anything to cut her head off, but maybe that wouldn’t be necessary. He could debilitate her by making her bleed and then figure out how to go from there. His teeth were already coming out of as he carefully follow the scent.

It turned out he didn’t need to take all those precautions.

The vampire was tied up to a tree, struggling slightly against her chains. She had been stripped down to her underwear and her skin sizzle and smoked every time a sunray touched her. It wouldn’t kill her, of course, but it couldn’t be very pleasant either.

Benny approached her carefully, though her chains were held up in place by a padlock. She was gagged and her dark eyes opened with distress when she heard Benny approaching her. She shrunk against the trunk of the tree, but Benny had already decided not to kill her.

Not without getting her to answer some questions first, at least.

He informed her of that as he knelt in front of her.

“Are they close?” he asked.

She shook her head no. Benny probed her mind carefully. She was leaving it open to him, so he would know if she was lying or not. Then again, that was probably a way to earn his trust. He carefully removed the gag off her mouth.

“What’s your name?”

“Ruby.”

“Ruby,” Benny repeated. “Are you by any chance friends with Meg?”

“You’re with her?”

“Why did they tie you up and leave you here?” Benny asked, tilting his head. “What did you do?”

Ruby’s closed shut again, her eyes fill with distrust. That was as far as he was going to get with her, at the very least until he managed to get something that would make his interrogation more effective. He couldn’t do that here, though, not where Luc could come find Ruby again.

“If I set you free, are you going to run away?”

“Where and how, exactly?” she said, rolling her eyes. “They took my shoes, too.”

That was a good point. After a few seconds of consideration, Benny grabbed the padlock and ripped out. Ruby immediately hugged herself, as if the skin of her arms would get less burned that her chest or her stomach. Benny took off his jacket and threw it over her shoulders and head.

“What a gentleman,” she said, sarcastically. Yeah, she was definitely Meg’s friend.

“Let’s go inside,” Benny suggested. “And you can tell me all about what you did to Sam and Jess.”

A strange fear flashed through Ruby’s eyes, but she let Benny grabbed her by the arm and take her into the abandoned house anyway.

* * *

It shouldn’t have taken him the entire day to go back to the city, but Sam only drove until the sun came out. He had to stop, because whatever was going on with him, it had made his eyes extremely sensitive to the light. He could barely keep them open and his hands…

His hands burned when the sunrays hit them. He could see his skin going red and peeling off, like he had been locked in some sort of oven. He bit his lips not to scream, stopped the van at the side of the road and crawled on the back, where it was cool and dark. He found a blanket there, along with some clothes, a bong and some canned foods. Andy had been living there on a semi-permanent basis, it would seem.

He covered his head with the blanket, curled up in a ball on the side, and tried to sleep. He didn’t think he was going to get it, not with everything that had gone on with him, but his mind shut off almost immediately, plunging him into a thankfully dreamless state.

When he woke up again, his mind was clearer. The events of the night before almost seemed like a nightmare, or a hallucination of sorts. Had he really killed that guy? Yes. He still had dried blood under his fingernails, if the van he was in wasn’t evidence enough of it.

He should eat something. He didn’t feel hungry or thirsty, even though he was sure he hadn’t eaten or drank anything (other than Andy’s blood) in like… two days? Three days? Had long has it been since those… those monsters had taken him and Jess out of their room? His head hurt and it was getting harder to think, so he stopped trying.

He felt around the van until he found a can opener. He apologized to Andy’s spirit one more time and opened the food. It was tuna, he thought, and he didn’t have a spoon to eat it with, so he just dug on it with his fingers.

A second later, he was throwing himself out of the van, falling on the pavement on his hands and knees and hurling. The tuna hadn’t tasted that bad when he’d first started eating it, but after a few seconds his stomach had rebelled and the vomit had burned in his throat. He threw it all up, a disgusting mess of partially digested fish and bile.

He was sick. He had to be. Not just mentally, but… something was so fundamentally wrong with him he couldn’t even fathom what it was.

He sat on the pavement for a long time, watching as the sun set in the distance. He dragged himself back to the van and rummaged through it again. He found a duffle bag with some clothes that were too short for him and sneakers that were too small. He put them on anyway, if only because maybe dressed up he would feel like less of a savage animal.

He was near the city now. The night had fallen, but the gas station he stopped at was practically empty. The clerk behind the counter took one look at him and stepped back, which meant that Sam looked like a giant, terrible, deranged mess. Not that he felt any different, but he still tried to speak with as much calm as he could in order not to terrorize this poor guy any further.

“Do you have a payphone?”

The guy pointed outside and then promptly disappeared in the back. It was a good idea. He, too, smell of blood, though not as strongly or as purely as Andy had. Sam could focus on the chemical smell of his deodorant or the soap of his uniform and tell himself his stomach wasn’t growling with hunger at it or that his teeth didn’t suddenly feel uncomfortably big for his mouth.

He shoved the coins one by one into the phone. It was almost a miracle that it still worked and the he still remembered Dean’s number by heart.

An engine roared behind him. Three girls in a convertible parked next to one of the pumps. Their loud laughter and voices reached Sam. One of them stepped out, doing an impressive balancing act in her vertiginous heels, her legs exposed by her short, red dress. Her blonde hair spreading down her back.

Blonde hair like Jess’.

The night breeze brought her perfume towards Sam.

He moaned. She smelled so _delicious_ , like a blooming flower, like the most exquisite liquor. He wanted to hold her against himself, feel the warmth of her body, drink up her entire essence.

Feed. He needed to feed…

“Hello?”

His brother’s voice broke through the fog. Sam held his breath and turn around so he didn’t have to look at the girl. His heart was pumping. What would he say? What would he think? It didn’t matter. He would help him. Sam knew he would.

“Dean.”


	6. Anything For You

Dean and Castiel spent the day on their phones. Meg hated every second of it, not only because Castiel wasn’t paying enough attention to her, but also because they were both growing anxious about things they couldn’t control.

She agreed with Dean on one thing. If Jessica was dead, it meant that most likely Sam was, as well. It was sad, it was tragic, it was whatever they wanted it to be.

It didn’t change the fact that in the grand scheme of things, it mattered very little. Luc, Lilith and Ruby weren’t going to stop coming for them, they were not going to leave them alone and they would kill whoever they’d consider necessary on their way.

So to her, it was exasperating that Benny wasn’t there yet so they could elaborate a plan on how to deal with that. He’d called hours before and told her that he’d found something, but he couldn’t tell her what it was just yet and she needed to be patient.

Patience had never been one of Meg’s virtues. And sitting on the couch while Castiel argued with his landlord that he really didn’t need to be present to talk to the insurance inspectors while Dean cried and called up another of Sam and Jess’ mutual friends to update them on the situation wasn’t doing her any favors.

And on top of all that… she was thirsty.

She had fed two nights ago, after the attack. Castiel had offered himself to her and she had been extremely thankful. She was badly injured and rattled, but she still hadn’t taken as much as she would’ve if she had been drinking from a stranger whose posterior well-being didn’t matter to her as much. On top of that, Castiel’s anemia was so bad that it meant his blood wasn’t as nutritious as that of a healthy person.

So in normal circumstances, she would’ve been able to hold on for over a week without feeding. Now, though, she could pull maybe another night before she would start feeling cranky and weak.

And she couldn’t be weak. Not when Luc was looming over them.

Castiel finished the call and walked over to where she was sitting on Dean’s couch.

“Are you okay?”

Oh, so maybe he had been paying attention after all.

“I’m fine,” she lied. He didn’t buy it for a second. He put a hand on her cheek and watched her closely.

“Are you…?” He looked over his shoulder, at Dean pacing up and down the place with the phone in his ear. He still lowered his voice as he asked: “Do you need blood?”

“I always need blood,” Meg replied, rolling her eyes. “To be honest with you, I’m worried about Benny. It’s not like him to say that he’s going to show up somewhere and then to just… not.”

“Do you want me to call him again?”

Meg shook her head. They had called him several times already and he wasn’t picking up. At this point, it was a waste of time. The only problem was, she didn’t know what else they could be using their time for. They were sitting ducks in that apartment, but where else where they supposed to go?

Castiel looked outside of the window quickly.

“The sun is setting,” he announced. “Maybe we can go to the roof so you can feed.”

“From you?” Meg asked, arching an eyebrow.

Castiel’s mouth twisted in a grimace.

“I know I’m not the most… delicious dish on the menu, but…” He stopped and looked at Dean, whose voice was raising now. “Maybe you could…”

“No.”

“You didn’t even know what I was going to say!”

“I’m not going to eat your friend. That’s a gross overstepping of boundaries,” she protested. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked at the ceiling for a moment. “Also the thought of feeding from Dean makes me gag.”

“He’s not really that bad when you get to know him. He’s had a rough day today,” Castiel protested. But Meg could tell from the way his shoulders relaxed that he was relieved.

Meg figured she didn’t need to tell him that she’d caught Benny’s scent the moment they’d set foot in that apartment. It was faint (maybe it would have been stronger if she was more used to tracking other vampires like Benny was), but it was familiar enough that she didn’t have a problem identifying it. She’d also noticed two small wounds on Dean’s neck, like mosquito bites. They were healing already, so maybe Benny had been there a day? Two before?

In any case, if Benny had only fed from Dean once instead of claiming him like Meg had Castiel, it wouldn’t just be their boundaries she’d be overstepping. It was just plain rude to bite someone else’s meal.

Besides, she wasn’t sure Castiel knew what Dean got up to with other men. Maybe he knew, maybe he didn’t, but it wasn’t her place to tell him. Castiel was right; Dean had had a pretty bad day and despite deciding early on she didn’t like him, she wasn’t entirely indifferent to his plight.

“Well, what do you want to do?” Castiel asked. “Benny is still a no-show and it’s not like I can call the hospital and ask them to deliver us some blood bags.”

“That would be so useful.” Meg sighed. “I guess rooftop dinner it is.”

The crash of glass breaking on the floor interrupted their conversation. Dean was practically shouting now.

“No, I am not…! You don’t know Sam at all, and if you speak like that again…!”

“Dean?” Castiel called him.

Dean ended the call and threw the phone violently over the counter and hid his face in his hands. There were shards all over the floor from what used to be the empty whiskey bottle. Meg decided to make herself busy with a broom and dustpan while Castiel dealt with whatever emotional breakdown Dean was having now.

“That was Jess’ dad. He’s… well, he’s devastated, of course. But he started saying some things… like, he said this is all somehow Sam’s fault and if Jessica hadn’t been dating him…”

“Dean, you can’t listen to that…”

“I can’t believe everyone thinks that of him!” Dean protested. “Sam would never hurt a fly, let alone someone he loved!”

Meg resisted the impulse to tell him that he shouldn’t worry about that; when they final found Sam’s body they would all be sorry. She guessed that would’ve been a little insensitive, though she couldn’t be sure. Benny was right, she had spent too much time away from humans and now she wasn’t entirely sure how to treat them. They experienced things differently; they lived for such a short time that every loss was a great tragedy for them. They didn’t have the perspective she did. She had killed her estranged brother a couple of nights ago and she didn’t feel any particular grief over it.

She remembered what grief was like, though. It wasn’t pleasant.

She threw away the shards and stared at the back of Castiel’s head. Would she feel grief if Luc killed him? Well, of course, that went without saying. That was why she was so desperate to protect him, why she’d chopped off Tom’s head without giving it a second thought.

So maybe she wasn’t as distant as she pretended to be. She wasn’t as above those emotions as she would like. Damn.

“I’m sorry, I’m being such a…”

“Dean, you have nothing to apologize for,” Castiel assured him.

Dean stood up and stepped away from the counter.

“I need to clean the… oh,” he mumbled when he noticed that Meg had already done it.

“You’re welcome,” she shot back.

“Yeah, thanks, I…” He stopped and rubbed his eyes. He had slept very little the night before and if Meg got cranky when she didn’t have the chance to rest as much as she would like, she imagined it must have been a lot worse for humans. “You guys don’t need to be here,” he added. “I mean, I appreciate it and all, but you have to go deal with your apartment and you… have you even eaten? I don’t think I saw you eat.”

“I like to take my meals in private.”

_God, she’s weird._

She had to resist the urge to laugh in his face. He really had no idea what he has up against.

“If you need some time alone, you can just say so,” Meg pointed out. “Cas and I can step out for a little bit.”

Dean bit his cheek, considering it.

“Yeah, I think… I just need to shower and take a moment to… process all that’s happening.” He took a deep breath. “A part of me still hopes that he’s alive. But I know it’s just a matter of time until they find him too and then… it’ll be all too real.”

Meg remained silent, while Castiel squeezed Dean’s shoulder in a consoling gesture. He glared at them both.

“You got nothing to say?”

“What do you want us to say?”

“That I can’t be thinking like that or that we shouldn’t give up hope or… I don’t know, something.”

“It’s not that we’ve given up hope on Sam,” Castiel said. “It’s just this situation is a bit overwhelming for everybody.”

It bothered Meg he spoke for the both of them, given that she had never met Sam and she never had any hope Luc would let him live. Either way, that answer seemed to calm Dean down a little.

“I need a smoke,” she declared. “Can we go up to you roof or…?”

“Sure. The key is right there. Make sure not to leave any ashes or Mrs. Carrigan will have my ass.” He stopped for a second and considered what he’d just said. “What am I saying? I don’t give a shit. Do whatever you want.”

“Thank you!” she said. “If you need anything, just scream.”

“Like you’re going to hear me from all the way up there.”

Meg waited on the hall for Castiel to double and triple check that Dean would be okay alone for ten minutes. She was going to make a joke about it, but then he walked out of the apartment.

He was a young man, not even a quarter of a century old now. But as he approached her, as the harsh white light of the hallway hit his face, he looked like he had aged at least ten years. He was pale and there were dark circles under his bloodshot eyes, his dark hair was messy and his hand, when they grabbed Meg’s, lacked any force.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?”

“Yes, of course,” he promised her and tried to smile, but it come out weak. “I feel like I’ve barely had any time with you since all of this started and, well…”

It was in the elevator when Meg figured out what was wrong and she could’ve kicked herself for not noticing it before. Castiel had been so busy making sure both Dean and her needs were met that he hadn’t actually stopped to think about his own.

The doors opened and Castiel unlocked the stairs that lead them to the roof. The sun had vanished almost completely in the horizon now, bathing the city in a soothing purple shade. Meg had never realized how many colors the night had until she was a vampire. As Castiel leaned over the rail that separated him from a four story fall, she wished more than ever to be able to share that with them.

He closed his eyes and breathed in the cool air, deep and slow, before turning back to her.

“So…”

Meg was on him almost a bit too fast, a hand sliding under his light jacket and the other coming to rest on his cheek.

“You don’t have to do this,” she told him. “Any of it. You don’t have to…”

“Meg, you’re thirsty and I really don’t mind…”

“Sam and Jess were your friends,” Meg pointed out. “You should be able to grieve them too.”

Castiel’s grew wider. His arm came around Meg’s waist and he pulled her closer, leaning his chin on the top of her head. They remained there, silent and immobile, until a strangled sob rose from his stomach, to his throat, coming out broken and long out of his lips.

“I’m sorry, love.”

“This is all my fault, isn’t it?”

“No, of course not,” she promised him, moving away from him to look up at his tired face. She wiped the tears that had streamed down his cheek, gently, like he was a wounded little bird that needed to be treated with all the delicacy in the world. “If anyone is to blame, it’s me.”

“Meg, you didn’t…”

“I dragged you into my world,” she pointed out. “Luc would have never come for the people you cared about if it hadn’t been for me.”

“You couldn’t have known.”

“I should have known _someone_ would take issue with this,” she argued. “If it wasn’t him, it would’ve been Boris. I didn’t care, because I wanted you, because I decided you belonged to me, and no one had any right to tell me otherwise. I was selfish.”

She didn’t know where all of this was coming from. She had never stopped to question her motives. She had left Luc because she was angry, because he had killed her father and taken something from her that she’d never agreed to. She had decided to stop killing humans not because she felt deeply guilty about it, like Benny did, but because she figured it would be easier to live like that. She had decided Castiel was hers, because she wanted it.

He brushed aside a lock of her hair.

“If you chose me, then I chose you too.”

“I didn’t exactly give you much of an option.”

“Yes, you did. You told me to leave, you said that would leave. I begged you not to and I would do it again, even knowing how dangerous that is,” Castiel stated.

Meg was going to say that had happened after Tom attacked them, after he was already in danger, but he didn’t give her time: he leaned over and kissed her, holding her so close it was like he wanted to melt with her.

And well, what was she supposed to do about that? She was a selfish creature. Fundamentally, deep inside. And he belonged to her. She would do anything for him.

That was what hit her that if he was her, so were the people he cared for. His siblings, his friends. They were all hers.

For the first time since Tom had attacked them, she stopped being scared, she stopped being worried. She got mad. Those were her humans and no one had a right to lay a hand on them.

They broke away and she held Castiel’s face between her hands, so he would look at her.

“No one else is going to get hurt,” she promised him. “I’m not going to allow it.”

“Thank you,” he sighed. He gave her a quick peck on the forehead before letting go so he could take off his jacket.

“I can really hold on…” Meg tried to argue.

“You can’t.”

He pulled from his shirt down to uncover his neck and his shoulder. Meg’s eyes darted towards him, towards the thick, pulsing vein under his skin. Her fangs came out without her giving them permission too, but she held back.

“Cas, you know you don’t have to do this for me,” she insisted. “I’ll be fine. It’s not like I’ll die without it.”

“I know,” Castiel said. He lowered his eyes and suddenly he looked… almost sheepish. “I want you to do it.”

“Really?”

“It felt good. When you bit me in my place, it felt… really good,” he admitted, with a soft chuckle. “I guess that makes me just as weird as you, doesn’t it?”

“Not even close,” Meg replied, but she couldn’t help a sensation of… satisfaction at his words. She had done a good job. She hadn’t hurt him, but made him happy in a way. She stepped closer to him and put a hand on the back of his head. “Tell me how it felt. Describe it to me.”

“I felt… euphoric.”

“What else?” Meg asked, her face already sinking on the spot right where his neck became his shoulder.

“Like I was melting. Into you. Like I was one with you.”

Meg hummed against his skin and left a soft kiss on it.

“Like I was yours,” he concluded.

“And how did it feel to be mine?”

He sighed so softly, so relaxed between her arms.

“It was perfect.”

“Good.” Meg licked at his skin and Castiel moaned softly, grabbing unto her back for dear life. “I want you to always feel that way.”

* * *

The water drummed on his head, washing over his body slowly. Dean stood in the shower, leaning against the wall with a sigh. When they were little, their father used to bathe him and Sam together, because it was easier, he supposed. He had a picture of him at six and Sam barely two, sitting on the bathtub with yellow duckies and smiling for the camera. He also had memories of, when he was older and John had to work long hours, preparing the bath and making sure Sam washed behind his ears. He would sometimes protest, arguing that there was no point in bathing if he was just going to get dirty again the following day.

He was always a smartass kid.

Dean couldn’t believe he was never going to see him again.

He shut the water off and grabbed a towel. He wiped the mirror and grimaced at his reflection. He looked haggard and tired, exactly how he felt. Like he had been torn and frayed, like he was falling apart slowly.

He couldn’t even muster the energy to cry again. He wanted to go to bed and just black out for several hours, forget all of this nightmare was happening. Jess was dead, man… he didn’t need to feel guilty for resenting her on top of everything else. She had just wanted to make Sam happy, to push him to pursue his dreams and he had wasted time being petty and angry with the woman that would have been his sister-in-law. He should’ve treated her like he treated Sam, like family.

He walked into his room, not even really caring about the trail of water dripping in his wake. He grabbed some clean jeans and a shirt from his closet. He sat on the bed, wondering if he should go to the roof to interrupt Meg and Cas’ making out session (because, come on, that was totally what they had gone up there to do) when his phone rang.

He didn’t want to pick up. He was exhausted from calling people and letting them know about Jess, from receiving their condolences and assuring him they were there if he needed them, even though they wouldn’t. All the Campbell cousins on their mother’s side who lived scattered across the country had been appropriately commiserated, but none of them had offered to travel there to see Dean, to help out with the search and whatnot…

The phone was insistent, though. Whoever was on the other side (the screen told him it was an unknown caller) was just not giving up, so it was better to deal with this already.

“Hello?”

There was a gasp on the other side, like the person calling him had been caught by surprise.

“Dean.”

An electric current went down his spine and suddenly all the tiredness and misery evaporated from his body.

“Sam? Sammy!” he shouted.

“Dean, I’m… I’m so glad to hear you,” Sam said. He sounded like he was about to break down crying and Dean couldn’t really blame him.

“Sam, what the fuck? Where the hell are you?” Dean asked, pacing around the room because he just couldn’t stay still. “I thought you were… they… Jessica…”

“I know,” Sam said. “I… I couldn’t help her, Dean. There were three of them and they were…”

He sounded so broken. Never in his life had Dean heard him like that, not even when their father had died. Dean’s chest felt hollow all of the sudden. He was aching for his brother, aching to go to him and hug him and assure him everything would be okay. Though he had no idea how.

“Shit. I’m sorry.” Dean stopped in his track. There would be time for condolences later. “Where are you? How are you? Are you hurt?”

“No, but there’s… there’s something wrong with me. They gave me something, I don’t… I don’t feel so great.”

Had they roofied him? Who the hell were these people?

“I can’t be around people, right now,” Sam kept saying. “Can I go to your place?”

“Yes… no! Wait.” Dean was having trouble getting his ideas in order, but as usual when that happened, one instinct overtook everything else: he had to protect Sam. He had to keep him safe. That was his job. “They might be watching me.”

“What? Who?”

“Doesn’t matter. Can you go to the workshop?”

“I… I think so?”

“Okay, I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes,” Dean told him. He made a pause, to take a deep, shuddering breath. “I’m so glad to hear your voice, Sammy.”

Sam made a weird sound, something that almost sounded like a strangled chuckle.

“Right back at you.”

Dean’s hands were trembling as he ended the call. He was almost tempted to ask Sam to stay on the phone with him, but he didn’t know if that was feasible and, in any case, he needed to drive. Should he tell Cas? Should he contact Detective Henriksen?

No. He needed to see him first. Sam was alive. That was all that mattered. The rest, they would figure out in time.

He left a note to Cas telling him he was going for beer and grabbed his keys. He didn’t notice any car or policeman following him as he exited his building, but that didn’t really matter. The traffic was heavy and hopefully he managed to lose anyone after him after a few blocks.

Winchester & Singer’s was the small workshop his father had created along with his best friend, Bobby Singer. It had been like a third son for John Winchester, putting all his time and energy into, especially after his wife passed away. Sam and Dean had grown up among cars, learning how to change tires and fix motors before they were even old enough to hold the tools properly.

Dean had put his mind to learn all the tricks of the trade, spending his weekends and summers working part-time there, because he wanted his dad to be proud of him, to follow him into his footsteps. Sam had always been more the bookish type. All the details about cars and motors bored him to death, but he could knock out a history or civics essay in no time.

Bobby was technically still the owner and manager of the place, but Dean had taken on more and more responsibilities as he started growing older and talking about retirement. Those days, Bobby practically never showed up and Dean had given all the other employees an impromptu holiday until the issue with Sam had been resolved. He had spent most of the previous afternoon contacting clients and apologizing to them for the delays. Some had been more understanding than others, but in general, Dean hadn’t cared about their responses. Sam’s well-being took priority over everything.

There was a van he didn’t recognized parked outside of the workshop, an ugly formless thing with a cool, sexy woman painted on the side. Dean stared at the ugly thing for a moment before he took his keys out to open the front door. It was only then when he heard it.

“Dean…”

It was so soft it almost gave him a heart attack. Sam emerged from the back of the van, stumbling and confused, but alive.

Dean ran up to him and before he even had time to think about it, he threw his arms around his brother’s body, pulling him close in a tight hug. He needed to touch him, he needed to believe that he was really there, that he was alive.

Sam shifted and writhed a little among his arms, but he was there and he was solid. His skin was cold, though, though he wasn’t shivering. And he was crying.

“I’m sorry, Dean, I’m so sorry…”

“Sorry for what? Doesn’t matter.” Dean grabbed him by the arm and took on all of his weight as he led him towards the workshop. “We’re together. Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it, okay?”

Sam cringed and covered his eyes when Dean turned on the back room lights and his brother was tempted to do the same. Sam looked like he had been through hell: his long brown hair was a matted mess, his face was haggard and pale, with dark circles under his eyes that could compete with Meg’s. He was dressed in a shirt that was too small for his broad shoulders and pajama pants that had dark red stains on it.

Dean didn’t want to ask if those were bloodstains. He just guided Sam to the couch where he sometimes napped if the day’s orders were getting particularly grueling.

“Oh, Sammy,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Do you need us to go to the hospital?”

“I don’t know,” Sam said. His gentle voice sounded deep and tired. “I’m not sure they can help me.”

“Of course they can. They’re doctors. That’s what they studied for,” Dean joked.

He was trying to lighten the mood to the situation, but Sam didn’t smile. He just gave Dean a long, exhausted stare. Dean didn’t insist with the hospital thing.

“How did you get the van?”

“I… why did you say you were being followed?”

Dean was just as reluctant to answer that question as Sam was about revealing the origins of the van. He figured he wasn’t the one who had just been thoroughly traumatized, so he decided to speak first. It still took him some pacing around the back room, trying to find something to busy himself with, to find the words to explain.

“The police who were talking to you think you hurt Jessica,” he said. He didn’t know why he used that word. They both knew what had happened to Jessica.

The tiredness on Sam’s face slowly melted into something even worse: a sadness so deep, so uncontainable, it looked like he was drowning. Dean remembered that face. He had seen in their father’s face the day of their mother’s funeral.

“I didn’t… I couldn’t save her,” Sam said, a whisper that hurt more than if he had started wailing and crying at the top of his lungs. “There were… three of them, and they… I…”

Dean wanted to ask what had happened exactly. What had they done to Jess, what had they done to Sam. What did they look like and where he could find them, because, damn. He’d got in some violent fights when he was young and stupid and sometimes hounded by homophobes, but he had never in his life had wanted to kill someone as much as he did whoever had done this to his brother.

He took in a deep breath and tried to change the subject.

“Are you hungry? Are you thirsty? I think we have some crackers over here.”

“Dean. I did something…”

“You need to drink something,” Dean insisted, turning his back on Sam as he started to open the cabinets and searched around. There were a bunch of mugs and glasses, but nothing that could actually be eaten, per se. “Okay? We hydrate you, and then we get you to a doctor and then we call Detective Henriksen. You tell him what you told me… fuck!”

One of the mugs fell. The din it made when it hit the floor and smashed into pieces was like bell inside of Dean’s skull. He needed to calm down. He needed to assure Sam that one way or another, they were going to fix this, and he wasn’t going to achieve that if he kept being an idiot and dropping shit.

He grabbed the broken mug by its jagged edge and groaned when it sank on the palm of his hand. It was just a superficial cut, a scrape more than anything, but it still drew some blood. He threw the remains of the broken mug on the counter with a grunt of frustration and turned to look for a cloth or a napkin or something…

A strong body crashed against him, tackling him. He shouted, scared and confused, as he fell down. He hit his head against the hard floor and screamed again when he looked up and saw his brother, or something that looked like his brother, his face deformed in a snarl showing long, sharp white teeth that aimed directly at his throat.


	7. Worst Case Scenario

Dean punched up, his fist impacting against Sam’s nose. He didn’t want to hurt his brother, but the adrenaline rushed through his vein, his fighting instincts kicking in, before anything else.

Sam moved back without a whimper, but he seemed more surprised that Dean was putting up a fight. He immediately moved forwards again, as Dean tried and failed to wiggle from underneath his body. Why was he so strong? He shouldn’t be that strong!

Sam grabbed Dean’s hand when he tried to punch him again and twisted it. The bones cracked and a seething pain went through Dean’s wrist and forearm. A howl of pain escape Dean’s mouth, but it was nothing compared to when Sam finally immobilized his other arm and sank his unnaturally sharp teeth on his throat.

Dean paralyzed. His mind went blank. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening. Sam’s lips burned against his skin, his tongue lapping greedily at the blood that flowed from his wound, and Dean just couldn’t think. He should be terrified, confused; he should still be trying to fight it. But all he could do was relax under his brother’s bite, let this sensation of ease wash over him. He closed his eyes…

The weight of Sam’s body was lifted off of him. There was growling and grunting, like that of a wild animal. The din of things falling and shattering as the fear and anger returned to him.

Meg was there. It didn’t make sense. She had jumped on Sam’s back and was holding unto him, refusing to let go as Sam spun on himself and waved his arms wildly, trying to get her off of him. He stepped and hit the back room’s door with such violence that it broke under their combined weight.

Dean tried to stand up, but the wound in his neck was still bleeding and his head was spinning wildly. He could still hear the sounds of the fight, furniture breaking, those horrible snarls and snapping…

She was hurting Sam. He had to stop her.

He almost fell on his face when he grabbed unto the counter and forced himself to his feet. He staggered forwards, ignoring all the signs that his body was going into shock, ignoring his broken hand and the black spots in the edge of his vision.

They had jumped over the front desk. Sam had landed on his back and Meg was on top of him, holding him down much like Sam had done to Dean, her fist falling unto his face, his chest, his throat. Sam buckled under her, artlessly, madly. When his fist finally managed to impact on her chin, he sent her flying off of him and jumped back to his feet.

His nostrils explored the air and his widened eyes found Dean’s. His chin and shirt were bloodstained, his shoulders and chest raising and falling with his agitated breathing.

And for a moment, he didn’t look like Sam at all. He looked like some maddened, horrible beast that would have killed him, that could still kill him, that would rip his throat out and not give a single care to the fact they were brothers, that Dean was the person who loved him the most in the world.

That scared him more than any other things that had happened in the last few days.

He stepped backwards as Sam arched his back, ready to jump at him again…

Meg grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and spun him around, throwing him as effortlessly as if Sam was a rag doll. He crashed through the workshop’s front window, glass shattering as his body rolled on the street.

Dean’s stomach filled with fear as Meg jumped out behind him. He limped, ignoring his aching head, ignoring his body slowly losing strength, towards the door.

Sam was already back on his feet, like being thrown through the window was nothing to him. He fiercely growled at Meg, his teeth extended, and she hissed back, her black hair bristling around her face like a cat. Her nails almost looked like claws, claws that were readying themselves to tear into Sam.

“Don’t hurt him!” Dean screamed, and though his voice came out hoarse and weak, they heard him. Meg glanced at him over her shoulder right before turning her attention back to Sam, like she feared he would attack again if she got distracted for too long.

Sam didn’t move, though. He blinked and it was like sanity returned to him all at once. He closed his mouth and took in a deep shuddering breath, shaking his head. When he opened his eyes again, he was almost crying.

“Stay away,” he begged. “Stay away from me!”

“Sam, wait…!”

Sam turned around, prepared to run, prepared to disappear without explaining, without letting Dean even try to help him…

A black car appeared from the side, speeding up the street and directly towards Sam. It impacted against Sam’s body, which rolled over the windshield, the roof and slid off the trunk, finally falling back on the pavement as the car stop.

Meg straightened her shoulders.

“Well… that’s one way to deal with that.”

“Sam!” Dean shouted. His knees almost gave out and he would’ve fallen too if Meg hadn’t been there to catch him. “Let me go!” he demanded as she passed his arm over her shoulder. “Let me…!”

“Calm down, Dean-o.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down! My brother… they just killed my brother!”

“He’s not dead,” Meg promised him as she helped him limp towards the car. “I mean, he’s gonna be in a bit of pain when he wakes up, but he’ll be fine!”

“What are you talking about? They just run him over!” Dean protested. “They run him over with…”

He stopped when he realized that the car that had just interrupted that terrible, impossible fight was his. And the person coming out of it was none other than Cas, looking extremely worried.

“Are you okay?”

“He’ll be fine,” Meg promised him. She opened the back door and practically forced Dean to sit down. She took off her leather jacket, dropped it on the floor and then ripped a piece of her own blouse, exposing her midriff. “It was just a little bite.”

“Cas, what the fuck is going on?!” Dean asked.

“It’s… it’s a long story,” Castiel said, lowering his eyes with guilt. He looked at Sam’s unmoving body and took a step towards him.

“Stay away!” Meg warned him. Castiel startled and jumped backwards. “We don’t know when he might wake up.”

She placed the piece of blouse against Dean’s neck. Dean winced when she grabbed his broken hand and placed it against the wound to stop the hemorrhage.

“You two get in the car,” she instructed him. “I’m getting Sam.”

Dean started protesting, but Cas did exactly what she had said. He shut the door, locking Dean up in the back of his own car.

“Did you hotwire my car?” Dean asked when Cas climbed back on the driver’s seat.

“No, you forgot the keys in,” Castiel said. “You’re lucky it didn’t get stolen.”

Dean didn’t exactly feel lucky at that very moment. He felt dizzy and tired and confused, but he couldn’t let himself pass out just yet. He looked over his shoulder, to see Meg grabbing Sam’s body and dragging it towards the Impala. It seemed impossible than a girl as small as hers could carry a guy as tall and heavy as Sam, but it didn’t seem like she was even breaking a sweat. She opened the trunk and shoved him in there, pushing his legs in before she shut it out.

“She can’t do that,” Dean protested, but it was weak. The relief to know that at least they were taking Sam with them, wherever they were going next, was enough to calm his currently scattered brain. “Sam needs… he needs a doctor.”

Cas’ stared back at him, his eyes screwing up in a weird way. It was almost like he was… pitying him.

“He needs a lot more than that,” he said. “But it’s okay. We’re going to help him.”

Dean sighed deeply.

“You promise?”

“I promise. We’re taking him somewhere they can help.”

Dean wanted to ask more questions, thousands of questions like “What’s wrong with him?” and “What the fuck is your girlfriend’s deal?” but it was like that reassurance had switched something in his brain and he couldn’t think anymore. All he wanted was to curl up in a ball and let someone else take care of the madness for five minutes.

“Okay,” he said, as he laid down on the backseat, not even bothering to press the cloth to his neck anymore. “Okay. That’s good. Thank you, Cas.”

“It’s going to be okay, Dean.”

He really hoped Cas was right about that, but he didn’t have the chance to say it as darkness swallowed him whole.

* * *

Both Winchester brothers stayed passed out until they reached Meg’s estate (Castiel didn’t feel comfortable calling it a house anymore), which was a good thing. Castiel dreaded Dean waking up and asking why the hell his brother was a vampire now, and dreaded even more Sam waking up and banging on the trunk, begging to be let out.

“What are we going to do with him?”

“Lock him up somewhere he won’t hurt anyone,” Meg replied. “Feed him blood bags until he recovers his sanity. Then… we’ll see.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of a plan.”

“It’s the best I got right now.” She sighed, frustrated. “I didn’t expect them to do this. Of all the things they could have done… I never imagined…”

She shook her head and Castiel stretched his hand over the seat to grab her. Meg kept looking outside of the window pensively, but she squeezed his hands slightly, almost as if thanking him for the reassurance or as if trying to reassure him. He wasn’t sure anymore which one of the two had been more shaken by this revelation.

When they came back from the roof and found Dean’s note, they had no reason to doubt that he had done exactly what it said on it and gone out to buy another six pack. Castiel was tired after having his blood taken again, so Meg had offered for him to lay down on the couch.

“I’ll watch over you,” she’d said with that mischievous smile that he loved so much.

So he’d curled up with his head on her lap and was about to fall asleep when her phone had rung. Meg spoke low enough that he couldn’t make out most of her words and he’d just been so tired, so emotionally and physically exhausted…

“What?!” she’d screamed, startling him into wakefulness again. “What do you mean she turned him?!”

After that, a new nightmare had started. It seemed like they just weren’t going to let up.

“Where he could possibly go?”

“I don’t know.”

“Think, Cas! You know them better than I do!”

Castiel had spun on his heels, desperate for an answer, but his mind was blank with panic. Sam was alive. He was a vampire, a newborn one that couldn’t quite control his bloodlust yet. Dean had gone to meet with him, ignorant of what could happen to him. Of course he had, Sam was his brother, Dean would do anything from him, including…

Including protecting him from the cops who thought Sam had killed Jessica. Including agreeing to meet him in a secluded place that they both knew well enough…

“The workshop!”

It was within walking distance, but Castiel wasn’t surprised to see that Dean had taken his car. He’d grabbed unto Meg’s hand and they had run down the nearly empty streets, with the few people they encountered giving them weird looks as they’d passed them by.

He didn’t hear the scandal or the din, but Meg did. She’d instructed him to stay out while she rushed through the open door. Castiel had stayed back, fidgeting and shaking and unsure of how he could help, if there was anything at all he could do. Once again, she was running headfirst into danger and he couldn’t do anything about it.

When Sam had crashed through the front window, however, when he stood on the street, growling and hunched and savage, Castiel had known exactly what he needed to do. Dean was going to be mad at him, but once he understood why Sam had to be stopped before they lost him or he hurt anyone else, he would forgive him.

Maybe.

“Why would Ruby do this?” Castiel asked now that they had some time to actually think about the situation instead of simply trying to contain it.

“She was always an idiot,” Meg said.

She was mad. In another occasion, she had mentioned that Ruby was the person she got along the better within Luc’s coven, and Castiel had the impression that there was actually some genuine affection between the two of them. She was clearly furious with her now, so Castiel was hesitant to ask further. He did anyway, because he needed to understand.

“I mean, what would she win with this? Did Luc order her to do it, to replace Tom, maybe?”

Meg stayed quiet for a while.

“According to what Benny said, Ruby got in trouble precisely for doing it without his permission. He found her chained to a tree under the sunlight. Luc is a sadist, but he doesn’t torture his own unless they really piss him off.” She made a pause. “You might be onto something with the trying to replace Tom, though.”

“They killed Jess,” Castiel pointed out. “Sam would never agree to join them.”

“If he hadn’t run away when he did, he might have,” Meg replied. “If they’d actually taken the time to explain to him what had happened or given them someone to feed on, Sam might have thought he had no choice but to stay with them. Luc has a way of making you think he knows everything and going against his desires is a mistake, so I had no doubt he could manipulate a scared and confused newborn into becoming part of his coven.”

That all made a terrible amount of sense.

They parked the car in front of the mansion. Benny was waiting for them already at the door. He opened the door, pulled Dean out in his arms with such delicacy, like he could break if he held him the wrong way, and immediately disappeared inside with him. He was back before they had even opened the trunk to check on Sam. He was moving and his eyes were fluttering, already waking up despite the fact that being run over by a car like that should have put him out of commission for much longer than the half hour it had taken to get there.

“Where are we taking him?” Benny asked, grabbing Sam’s arm and pulling him out to throw him over his shoulder.

“I’ve got some bags in the basement, so I guess we’re going there.”

Castiel followed them inside, watching Sam closely. He was stirring awake, but not quite there yet. What would he tell him when he woke up? What would he think? How were they going to explain this to him…?

He stopped. There was woman in the lounge. No, not a woman. He’d spent enough time around Meg and Benny to notice the fluid way she moved, the way she stood perfectly still, almost without breathing, to realize she was a vampire. She stepped into the light and Meg immediately stopped in front of Castiel, covering him like she thought the other one was going to jump at him.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, not even trying to hide the contempt in her voice. “And why are you wearing my clothes?”

She was dressed in a very similar style to Meg, now that she mentioned it: with tight jeans, a black blouse and a leather jacket that hanged over her shoulders, which she shrugged at them.

“I took the liberty of raiding your closet,” she said and looked down at her body. “I think your style suits me.” She took a step closer and smiled. “Long time no see, Meg.”

“Fuck off, Ruby.”

Benny reappeared from somewhere to their left, without Sam now. He opened his mouth, but Meg cut him off before he could even get a word in:

“I thought I told you to roast her.”

Ruby scoffed, offended. Benny looked apologetic.

“I couldn’t do that.”

“Why the hell not? What net benefit does it have for us for her to be alive?”

“You know I am standing right here!”

“She could reveal our position to Luc,” Meg continued talking.

“I’m not going to do that,” Ruby protested. “Do you really think I’m coming back to Luc after what he did to me?”

“Oh, please, he’s done worse and you’ve enjoyed it,” Meg protested, rolling her eyes.

“I kept her alive because we need her blood,” Benny said. “For the vampirism cure.”

“There’s a cure?” Castiel asked, suddenly hopeful that all was not lost for Sam. Maybe some of the damage he’d endured because of their friendship could be reversed after all…

Meg shook her head. “That’s a legend.”

“It’s not. But to make it, we need the Sire’s blood,” Benny said.

“Well, according to the legend, that only works if the newborn hasn’t fed,” Meg continued arguing. “I found dear Sammy in the process of draining his brother.”

Benny’s lips quivered at that information.

“Maybe he didn’t feed enough.”

“Why do you want to cure him?” Ruby protested. “I made him because I knew he’d be magnificent.”

“You shut up!” Meg snapped at her. “We literally wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for you!”

“I saved him!” Ruby shot back. “Why don’t you ask your pet if he would have preferred me to let his friend die?”

“Leave him out of this!” Meg demanded, but it was like her words had stoked a fire in Castiel.

“You had no trouble killing Jessica,” he pointed out. He took a step forwards, but Meg positioned herself between the two. It was almost like she knew Castiel wanted to do something all too stupid, like grabbed Ruby by the shoulders and shake her. Shake her violently until she admitted her guilt

It would impossible, of course. Ruby squinted her eyes at him, confused.

“Who?”

“Sam’s fiancée!” Castiel reminded her. “You killed her!”

“Oh, the blondie.” Ruby rolled her eyes. “She was weak.”

Castiel would’ve lunged himself at her if Meg hadn’t moved quick enough. His chest crash against her back and he had to content himself with glaring at Ruby over Meg’s shoulder.

“You have no idea who she was,” he protested. “You had no right…!”

“Meg, are you seriously going to let it speak to me like that?”

“You have problem with him, you’ll have to go through me,” Meg said. She didn’t scream. On the contrary, her voice dropped an octave, so the usual purring of her tone became almost a soft growl.

Ruby took stock of her threat and backed away a little, but she still had her chin lifted in the air, defiantly.

“I really don’t think you’re getting the big picture here. We can be a coven again. You, me, Sam. Hell, I’ll even let you bring the big guy if he would join us.”

Benny didn’t say anything. His face was blank, so it was impossible to tell what he was thinking, but Castiel noticed that his fists were clenching, like he was ready to fight Ruby if it became necessary.

“Do you even hear yourself speak?” Meg pointed out. “Last time I walked away from Luc I had to put an ocean and a continent between us just to have some peace. You’ve been with him much longer. What makes you think that he’s going to just let you walk away?”

“Of course he won’t. That’s why we have to kill him,” Ruby stated, as matter-of-factly as if she was pointing out that the sun came up every morning. “And after we do? We can take on Boris. Luc was thinking of doing that after we dealt with you. He liked it here. Boris has a good thing going. We can take over his territory, we can rule this entire town like kings and queens!” Ruby’s dark eyes glimmered almost manically as she spoke. She approached Meg again and this time she let her. She also let Ruby put a hand on her cheek. “Come on. Don’t tell me you haven’t missed it. The thrill of the hunt, the sensation to have a life extinguishing itself in your hands…”

“I don’t do that anymore,” Meg protested, but her voice sounded weak.

“You’ve been all alone here in this house, with this traitor as your only friend.” Ruby made a dismissive gesture at Benny. “No wonder you thought you had to find a human pet to have someone to keep you company.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know it all too well. I stayed with Luc for so long despite the way he treated me because I didn’t want to be alone,” Ruby kept saying. “I know you’ve felt the same way.”

She was so close now her face was practically grazing Meg’s.

Castiel felt himself falling in despair. Meg had told him that of all the people in the coven, Ruby was the one who understood her better, who was her friend. She might be actually telling her something that Meg wanted to hear, tempting her away from her life of not hurting innocents, of the Meg that had fallen in love with him.

He placed a hand on her hip, not sure what else he could do or say. Meg straightened her shoulders suddenly.

“You’re throwing a tantrum.”

“What?” Ruby asked.

“You’re turning against Luc because daddy’s not going to let you keep the stray puppy you brought home,” Meg continued. “You don’t hate him. You don’t want to kill him and come back to me. You just want whoever lets you stay with Sam.”

Ruby’s face fell. The smiling and almost friendly demeanor she’d had before changed completely. Her jaw became a hard line, her eyes pierced through Meg like she was planning on jumping her. Castiel had seen vampires angry and out of control before, with Tom and now with Sam, but this was a different kind of terrifying. It was a cold, calculating rage. She wasn’t just going to attack them, she was planning on doing much, much worse.

It was gone in a moment and then she lowered her eyes, almost like she was ashamed.

“So what? We all have our little whims.”

“He’s not a whim. He’s a life you took!”

“Oh, and you’re going to tell me you weren’t planning to do the same to that handsome thing standing behind you?”

“Not like that…” Meg protested.

“Alright, that’s enough!” Benny interrupted them. “He’s going to wake up soon and we still need to decide what we’re going to do with him. We can’t just let him roam the city killing people.”

“I want to see him,” Ruby demanded immediately. “I am his Sire. He is mine.”

“Oh, my God, you’re insufferable,” Meg protested.

“Meg.” Castiel put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her back. “I… think…”

“No one cares what you think, human boy,” Ruby interjected, but Castiel ignored her.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you should… consider it.”

“What?” Benny and Meg exclaimed in unison.

“No, let him speak!” Ruby said.

“Without her, Luc’s coven is down to only two vampires,” Castiel pointed out. “Him and Lilith.”

“Who are both older and incredibly more powerful,” Meg pointed.

“Exactly. And we’ll have even more problems if Boris were to attack us once he finds out you’re forming a coven again.”

“I’m not forming a coven again!”

“It doesn’t matter, if he thinks you are,” Castiel said. “You and Benny are both incredibly capable to hold your own, but you’d still be outnumbered and you won’t turn me to help you. Ruby is already here.”

“She’s a bitch!” Meg said.

“That hurts my feelings,” Ruby stated flatly.

“I’m not saying you have to accept her and form a coven with her again,” Castiel said. “But we have a common goal right now. Maybe let her help you?”

Meg twisted her mouth in a gesture of disapproval and crossed her arms over her chest.

“What about Sam? I’m sure he’s not going to be pleased to see we’re working with one of his girlfriend’s killers.”

“Yeah, what about Sam? You’re talking about turning him back into a human, but do you know if he even wants that?” Ruby said. “You’re no better than me, just deciding what to do about him without his input…”

“That is so not at all the same thing,” Meg replied.

“We should talk to him when he wakes up,” Benny said. He grimaced, like even tangentially agreeing with Ruby disgusted him. “See if he’s… on board with all of this.”

Ruby smirked. It was soft and triumphant, like she was so sure she could convince Sam that she was what was best for him. It made Castiel’s stomach churn. He had thrown his friend under the bus to try and help Meg. Again.

But what else was he supposed to do in this situation?

“What about the pretty boy you took upstairs?” Ruby asked. “If what we need numbers, we could turn him too…”

“He’s off-limits,” Benny replied instantly, before either Meg or Castiel could protest.

“Oh, come on, you’re not going to tell me…”

Benny was on Ruby in the blink of an eye. He didn’t touch her, but his already impressive stature seemed to have grown a few inches. His face was a mask of cold anger as he repeated:

“I said, he’s _off-limits_.”

Ruby scoffed again and raised her hands, in a gesture of vague surrender.

“Sure. Fine.” She sighed. “What is it with you and your pets? If you want them, why not just turn them?”

“We don’t do that,” Meg said. Her tone was also threatening. “If you’re going to stay in my house, if you’re going to work with me, you are going to respect the rules. And the humans under our protection are _off-limits_. Are we clear?”

Ruby rolled her eyes, but she agreed:

“Whatever you say, ma’am.”

“Benny, does she have a phone on her?”

“Where would I keep a phone? He found me practically naked in the woods!” Ruby said.

“No, she doesn’t.”

“Good. We’ll take turns making sure she doesn’t have a way to contact Luc,” Meg decided. “I’ll take the first one. Benny, you should go check on Dean. Cas, go get some rest.”

Castiel really didn’t want to leave Meg alone. However, he didn’t really like the way Ruby kept staring at him. Like she was very hungry and he was a piece of her favorite cake. He stepped away and followed Benny upstairs. When he looked over the rail, he saw that Meg and Ruby were standing exactly where they’d left them, perfectly immobile, like a couple of statues locked into a very intense staring contest.

“Are you sure this is okay?” Castiel asked as they walked down the hallway.

Benny let out a deep sigh. “I’m not entirely sure about anything anymore, lil’ brother. It’s a mess all around.”

There was no arguing with that, certainly. Castiel sighed and turned to Benny.

“What about this cure you mentioned? Is that…? I mean, is it something that could really work?”

Benny put his hands on his pocket and leaned against a wall.

“It’s only been tried once, as far as I know, and it didn’t exactly had the expected results.”

“How do you know about it?”

Benny looked up at him. There was such sorrow in his blue eyes that Castiel was almost tempted to say that he didn’t need to tell him about it if he didn’t want.

“It’s how I’m here now.”

He didn’t elaborate and Castiel had the impression that, even if he asked, he wouldn’t get a straight answer. Benny opened the door to his left, where they could see Dean’s unconscious form sleeping on the bed. Someone (Castiel presumed Benny) had put a bandage over the wound on his neck.

“Is he going to…?”

“I’ll call you if something changes,” Benny replied, moving a chair from a desk to sit by Dean’s bed. “Do what Meg said and go get some sleep.”

Castiel really thought he wouldn’t be able to, not when his friends were in such dire conditions. He was right. No matter how much he tossed and turned, there was no way to convince his mind to shut off. Over and over, he saw the image of Sam standing in the street, with his arched back like a predator, his hungry growling. Was he even still himself? Would he ever be again…?

He must have drifted off at some point, because he jolted up what felt like hours later. There was a figure breathing heavily in the dark. For a split second, his half-asleep mind thought it was a giant black panther stalking around the bed. The thing got up, making the mattress sink under his weight. Castiel trembled until long, soft fingers caressed his face. The body that laid next to him under the covers was undeniably human. He breathed in the scent of her dark hair and placed her arms around her waist.

“Meg.”

“I’m here, love,” she said, kissing him in the neck. “Go back to sleep.”

Castiel pulled her closer to him and did exactly that.


	8. Pouring

Dean woke up disoriented and in pain and what he saw when he looked around wherever he was didn’t help. He was in a king-sized bed that wasn’t his, in a room full of old-fashioned furniture and ugly green lime curtains that he would never hang in his apartment.

And Benny was there. He sat on a chair next to the bed, arms and legs crossed, his faced bow down with his chin against his chest, that rose and fell slowly every time he took a deep breath.

That made absolutely no sense. Dean’s entire body hurt, but it was the bad kind of hurt, like whenever he got into a fight and got his ass handed to him. What the hell happened to his hand? Who had bandaged it…?

All the memories from the night before came flooding back at him.

“Sam,” he muttered, his mind jolting fully awake now.

He thought he was being discreet, but that movement alone was enough to startle Benny awake. He was by his side in a moment’s notice, grabbing him gently by the shoulder and pushing him down on the bed.

“Take it easy, handsome. Calm down.”

“Where the hell am I? Why are you here?” Dean asked, shaking his head. “Where’s Sam?”

“Those are… some very complex questions,” Benny replied. “What’s really important here is that you’re safe and so is Sam.”

“Okay, but where is he?” Dean insisted. “And what… what is wrong with him?”

Instead of answering, Benny stood up, opened the door and called to someone:

“He’s awake.”

Meg, Castiel and another woman who gave off the exact same weird vibes as Meg stepped inside. The other brunette woman crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. She seemed sulky for a reason while Castiel moved to sit down on the same chair Benny had abandoned a moment before.

“I know this must all seem very confusing to you,” Castiel started.

“I’ll say!”

“But there’s… there’s a lot I need to tell you and I’m going to ask you to hold off your questions until the end,” he continued. Meg was by his side, though Dean wasn’t sure he’d seen her move. She grabbed Castiel’s hand. “It at all started the night Meg came to me…”

And then he started telling Dean a story that sounded absolutely insane, something about vampires and covens and people who wanted them all dead. Dean listened to him in stunned silence, trying to absorb everything, but his mind simply refused to accept this could be true.

And yet… Sam’s aspect, the coolness of his skin, the fact he had bitten him to drink his blood…

“You’re insane,” Dean said, shaking his head.

“It sounds like it, I’m aware. I doubted my own mind for the longest time, but…”

Meg was on the bed, kneeling in front of him. Dean definitely didn’t see her move that time, but there she was, grinning at him. The whiteness of her teeth, the sharpness of her fangs awoke something primal in Dean, the same fear a caveman must have felt when they saw the eyes of a tiger shining bright amongst the foliage, way too close for him to make any sort of escape.

He tried anyway. He jumped backwards, but there was simply not enough bed for him to do that, so he ended up flat on the floor, his already aching muscles screaming in pain all at once. Or maybe that was just him.

“That was mean, Meg,” Castiel chastised her.

“Well, it was effective,” she replied, with a shrug.

Benny grabbed Dean by the arm and delicately, like Dean was an old man who would get his hip broken if they even looked at him wrong. Dean looked at him and a sudden realization hit him as he slinked his arm out of his grasp.

“You bit me!” he remembered. “The other night, you…! Are you one of them?!”

“I… yes,” Benny admitted and at the very least he had the decency to look guilty about it. “I’m afraid so.”

“Are you?” Dean asked, turning towards Castiel. “Am I? Am I going to turn…?”

“No, you’re not,” Meg cut him off. She sounded almost exasperated.

The other woman laughed.

“You seriously changed Luc for… this?”

“Shut up, Ruby,” Meg snapped. There was a warning tone in her voice. Ruby huffed and rolled her eyes.

“You weren’t turned,” Castiel reassured Dean. “But… Sam was.”

A part of him already knew. The more Castiel spoke and the more details he gave, the more the puzzle of what had happened to his brother became clear. The fear had been growing on his gut all of this time and now that it was confirmed, it hit him like a wave. He grabbed unto the nearest thing (the bed’s headboard) and forced himself to look at the floor, to breathe in and out several times before he even attempted to speak.

“Where is he now?”

“Locked up in the basement,” Meg replied and shrugged when Dean stared at her with horror. “He was out of control, so we had no other choice. Other than running him over again, but it was a bit hard to get your car into my basement…”

“Suga’,” Benny interrupted him. “Not the time.”

Dean would’ve felt a little more grateful if Benny hadn’t just revealed that he’d fed on his blood. Fuck, eat and dash. The whole fucking buffet.

He wanted to laugh hysterically, but he controlled himself. He wouldn’t do Sam any good to if he just… fell apart.

“We think you might be able to get through to him,” Castiel added. Meg shot him a look and Castiel corrected himself: “ _I_ think you might be.”

“And I think it’s a stupid idea,” Meg continued. “He bit you. He marked you. You’re already his prey. Stepping into that basement might very well be the last thing you do.”

“Sam would never hurt me,” Dean argued.

“He has already hurt you,” Meg argue, pointing at Dean’s neck and hand. “You’re welcome for your life, by the way.”

“Sam is acting irrationally because he’s confused and angry. He’s hurting. He needs his brother.”

“I say we let him bang the wall a couple more days. He’ll calm down eventually.”

“We can’t do that!”

“Excuse me, is no one going to ask what I think of this?” Ruby interjected.

“No!”

So Cas, Meg and Benny didn’t like Ruby a lot. Dean made a mental note of it before turning to Benny.

“What do you think about this?”

He didn’t know why he asked him, of all people. Maybe because he was the only one who had some… distance? Some perspective that wasn’t rooted in his love and care for Sam, but maybe because he was a vampire he would side with Meg?

And what if he did? Cas had only known Meg for a very short time, while Meg and Benny had been vampires for a very long time. Maybe they understood better what Sam was going through, so he needed to listen to them…

“I think Castiel is right,” Benny said after a pause. “He needs to see a familiar face right now.”

“Then I’m talking to him,” Dean decided. It was really a no-brainer. If Sam needed him, he was going to be there.

Meg scoffed and crossed her arms over chest.

“Fine,” she said. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Castiel guided him outside of the room. The house was enormous and it had several windows, with thick curtains and sun-blocking suns installed in all of them. Despite Dean being half-convinced that he was going insane, he couldn’t stop to admire the open space, the stairs handlebars and the luxury, more modern furniture downstairs.

“Where are we, exactly?”

“Meg’s home.”

“Oh,” Dean said. “So… you’re not just dating a vampire, you’re dating a loaded vampire.”

“I think they’re all pretty loaded. Wealth tends to accumulate over time, according to Meg.”

Dean rubbed his eyes. “How are you so chill about this?”

“I’ve had time to get used to it,” Castiel said, with a shrug. He opened a door in front of them. Dean didn’t know what to expect anymore of that house, of that day, but he was a little disconcerted when Castiel guided him into a kitchen instead of the stairs to the basement.

“What’s this?”

“I thought that you might be hungry,” Castiel said, handing him a ham sandwich and a glass of orange juice. “Meg didn’t have any… human appropriate food in the house, so I did some online shopping this morning. They were very efficient.”

“Cas…”

“I made the sandwich myself and it would be good for you to be drinking lots of fluids. You lost a lot of blood last night.”

“Cas…”

“Benny fixed your hand. He said he took some med classes a few years ago because he was bored. He said it’s not broken, only dislocated, but that he’s going to keep an eye out for it and you should tell him if it hurts too much.”

That almost got him. Dean looked down at the bandage in his hand and had a very vivid image of Benny sitting by his bedside, tenderly working on his hand, trying not to wake him up as he did…

“Where did you…? I don’t mean to pry, but where did you meet him?” Castiel asked.

Dean looked up at him again.

“I want to see my brother,” he said, simply. “I don’t know why you’re stalling.”

“I’m not…”

“Cas, I swear to God…”

Cas sighed and put the sandwich and the juice down. Dean didn’t need to even look at him to know that his previous cheerfulness had been forced, but it surprised him to see just how tired and defeated he looked underneath it.

“I… I’m sorry,” he said. “I should be the one going down there, I should be the one to answer Sam’s questions. All of this happened because of me.”

“No, it happened because your psycho girlfriend has an even crazier ex,” Dean pointed out.

“He’s not exactly her ex…”

“Spare me the talk on vampire idiosyncrasies, please. I can’t handle that right now.”

He expected Castiel to laugh because, even though a small part of Dean agreed with him and wanted to tell him how stupid and dangerous it had been to become involved with a freaking legendary creature that lived of drinking other people’s blood, he still didn’t feel Cas could deserved to put all the blame on himself. Hell, not two days prior, Dean was blaming himself for not being a better brother-in-law to Jess, and he didn’t know that she had been kidnapped and murdered by supernatural killers.

It was all a mess. And besides, he didn’t really have a leg to criticize Cas on the issue. He too had taken a vampire home, but at the very least he hadn’t expected to see him again. Now that he did and now that he knew, though…

He couldn’t think about Benny right now. He didn’t want to think about Cas’ issues and how much to blame he was right now. All he wanted was to make sure Sam was okay. He could deal with all the rest later.

“Hey, if you really think you need to, we could go down and talk to Sam together now.”

Castiel considered it, but in the end, he just shook his head.

“I don’t think I can do that,” he said. “Does that make me a coward?”

“No. It makes you a human.”

He didn’t laugh at that either and Dean wasn’t sure himself if he’d meant it as a joke. Castiel put the sandwich back in the freezer and this time, he did guided Dean to the basement. Meg was waiting leaning against it and when she saw them, she took a key out of her pocket and manipulated the paddock that kept the door lock.

“I’m coming down with you,” she announced.

“I need to talk to Sam alone.”

“I’ll pretend I can’t hear what you’re saying. Only your screams when he tries to eat you again.”

“Well, aren’t you an optimist?” Dean growled.

“I’m just being honest here,” Meg replied. “That thing down there is not entirely your brother. Don’t expect him to be. It’ll save us all a lot of angst.”

She flung the door open and made a mocking gesture for Dean to come forwards. He hesitated for a second. The memories from the night before came again in full force: the rage and hunger in Sam’s face, his teeth sinking in his throat, how he hadn’t even hesitated to break his hand.

But he had also tried to warn him, had told him to stay away when he recovered his sanity enough to speak to him. The pain in his eyes as he tried to tell him what had happened to Jessica. That had been Sam, the Sammy he knew and he loved. No matter what Meg said, he wouldn’t be convinced of the contrary. He squared his shoulders and raised his chin up as he moved towards the steps.

When they had said that Sam was in the basement, Dean’s mind had gone to a grimy, dark place with shelves full of boxes and cobwebs. When the information about Meg being a vampire actually sunk down in his consciousness, he figured it was going to be like something out of a horror movie: a dungeon with dark walls and maybe torches on the walls, perhaps some iron rings where they had chained up Sam.

He had been wrong on both accounts. The basement had been remodeled into an actually decent bedroom, with lights overhead, wide walls except for the one, which was blue (for a splash of color, he supposed) and a carpeted floor. There was a double bed and a big, screen plasma TV, all of which would have made for a pretty chill ambient.

If the TV hadn’t been broken on the floor. There were holes in the walls where they had been punched and the headboard of the bed had been ripped apart. There were pieces of splintered wood and shards of glass that crunched under Dean’s feet when he took a step forwards.

“Sam?” he called out.

For a man as tall and muscular as Sam, it was almost impressive that he had managed to make himself seem so small. He was curled up in a ball against a corner of the room. Someone had been kind enough to get him a pair of jeans and a clean white shirt, though he still had no shoes on. Dean knew instantly that had been because they’d miscalculated how big his feet were. It had happened to John a lot when they were growing up and even to Jessica when she’d tried to buy some for him as a gift.

“Sammy,” he continued, despite Sam’s refusal to look up. “Hey, it’s me.”

Sam shrunk further away from him and murmured something.

“What was that?”

“I said, go away,” Sam replied. His voice sounded hoarse, like he’d been screaming. “I can… I can _smell_ you.”

Dean had to admit that freaked him out, just a little bit. It was one thing to be told his brother had turned into a vampire and another entirely to… see it. He supposed he’d seen it before, but he had no idea what was happening then, so it didn’t count. He stayed a few steps away from Sam anyway.

“I’m not afraid,” he said, though he didn’t know if he was trying to convince himself or his brother. “I don’t think you would hurt me, Sam.”

Sam let out a strangled sound. If Dean didn’t know him better, he could’ve almost thought it was a laughter.

“I already did!” he pointed out. “And not just… not just you. I… Dean, I killed someone.”

The confession sounded like it came from somewhere deep inside Sam’s chest, like it had been stuck in his throat for so long it was almost like a croak, like a cough, when he finally said it out loud. Dean froze on his place.

“What do you mean?”

“I killed a guy and drank his blood,” Sam said. “His name was Andy. He was kind. He saw me wandering by the side of the road and he stopped to help me. And I killed him. And I _enjoyed_ killing him.”

Sam’s eyes were dark and tired when they looked up at Dean.

“Do you still think I wouldn’t hurt you?”

The question chilled Dean to the bone. He was prone to getting into fights, even when he was a younger boy, but Sam was more likely to make friends with the weird, lonely kids at school than to fight bullies in the playground. He always cared, he always tried to help people. He’d tried helping Brady, he’d gone into Law School hoping to become a DA and help people.

What he was saying… the way he was looking at him, so fiercely, it didn’t fit at all with the very idea that Dean had of his brother.

He opened his mouth to try and say something, but all the words that came to his mind were vacant. What could he even say? _“I’m sure you didn’t mean it”_? _“It was an accident, you can’t blame yourself”_? _“We’ll solve this together”_? None of that made sense. This was a situation he was in no way prepared to deal with.

Meg was, luckily.

“Alright, Edge Boy,” she said. She walked past Dean and went straight into a mini-freezer that was also locked up with a padlock. “No point in keeping you thirsty, then. I don’t even know why I listened to Benny to begin with.”

“What does that mean?” Sam asked, his eyes opening wide. “What is that?”

“What does it look like?” Meg asked, holding it up.

It looked like a blood bag, the kind Dean had seen in hospital dramas when someone had been shot and needed a transfusion. There were apparently several in the mini-freezer by the bed and Dean had the ridiculous mental image of Meg lying in that bed, enjoying a movie, while she sucked them dry with a straw.

She walked around the bed, hit Dean with her shoulder on her way to Sam (God, she was built like a fucking house of bricks) and knelt in front of Sam.

“I’m not going to drink that,” he said, wrinkling his nose when Meg held one of the bags up to him.

“I know it’s yummier when it’s warm and straight from the tap, but this is the next best thing you’ll have until you learn to control yourself,” she replied, accentuating her words with an eye roll.

“I’m not thirsty,” Sam replied.

“Of course you’re not. That’s why you’re shaking and keep looking at Dean’s tasty throat.”

Dean startled. He hadn’t even noticed Sam was doing that.

“Listen, I admire what you’re trying to do,” Meg said. “For real. I’ve heard of newborn vampires going mad with thirst and decimating entire villages. The fact you’ve come this far without killing more than one person speaks to the kind of person you are, Sam Winchester.”

Sam scurried away from her, as far as the wall to his left allowed him to anyway.

“And what if I just… keep not drinking?”

“Then you’re going to lose yourself and this time I might not be able to pull you back from your brother before you do some real damage,” she stated, coldly. “This is the only way to keep you sane. And also the only way you can test how much you need before you’re satisfied enough that you don’t feel like sucking dry anything with a pulse.”

Sam’s gaze moved with hesitation between Meg’s face and the bag in her hand. His fingers were sinking in his arms, like he was physically restraining himself from reaching for it.

“Come on,” Meg insisted. “I know you must be _aching_ for it.”

Her voice was soft, almost like a caress, almost like she was tempting Sam into something different.

Dean suppressed a shiver and tried to look calm when Sam’s eyes rose up to meet his.

“I literally just learned of all this twenty minutes ago,” he told him. “But I would listen to the experts if I were you.”

Sam swallowed. Slowly, like he was still fighting against every single muscle and instinct in his body, he stretched his hand and grabbed the bag from Meg’s hand.

“Is it… was someone hurt to…?” he asked.

“It’s all donated,” Meg assured him. “I mean, it wasn’t donated to us, but that’s hardly the point. We need it too. You need it.”

There was no straw. Sam opened his mouth and Dean once again noticed those sharp, abnormally large fangs, sticking over his lips as he licked them. He unceremoniously sank them on the plastic and started sucking, slowly at first, but faster and faster with each gulp. Sam’s body was visibly shaking now, and moaning softly.

Within what seems like seconds, the bag was empty. He threw at the side, breathing heavily. Meg immediately offered him another. Sam grabbed it immediately this time and started sucking again, hungrily, desperately, while Meg sat on the bed and rubbed his back.

“There we go. That’s a good boy.”

She almost sounded like a mother encouraging her son to eat the vegetables. It was grotesque. Dean couldn’t keep watching. He turned on his heel and headed out of that damn basement. Neither Meg nor Sam stopped him.

Benny, Castiel and Ruby were all waiting for him at the top of the stairs. Ruby’s expression was indifferent, but Castiel and Benny were clearly concerned.

“So? How is he?”

Dean’s knees trembled and he would’ve collapse right there if Benny hadn’t caught him by the arm and gently guided him to a nearby armchair.

“You look pale!” Castiel said, worried.

“Yeah, well,” Dean said, hiding his head between his knees because the damn room around him wouldn’t stop spinning. “You would too if your brother just told you he killed a person to drink his blood.”

He appreciated the silence that followed that statement, if only because the alarms going off in his mind were enough to drown everything out.

“So… he fed. The very same night he was turned,” Ruby concluded. There was what oddly sounded like pride in her voice.

“There was never any chance for a cure,” Castiel said.

Dean lifted up his head so fast that the walls combed towards him and the ceiling seemed dangerous close. He forced himself to swallow the bile in his throat before asking:

“What cure?”

Benny leaned against the wall, defeated.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Not anymore.”

“So, what, that’s it?” Dean asked, looking at each of them alternatively. “Sam’s a vampire now? He’s gonna have to suck blood so he doesn’t go crazy and kill a bunch of people? What kind of life is that?”

“It’s a better life than you would imagine,” Ruby replied, with a shrug.

Dean calculated his chances of survival if he slapped that bitch and ultimately decided it wasn’t worth it. He stood up, ignoring the way the ground shook beneath his feet and stumbled forwards.

“Where are you going?” Castiel asked him.

“To the kitchen. You were right, I need to… eat… and drink… and just… not be here for ten minutes.”

“Dean…”

“Ten minutes, Cas!” Dean snapped at him. “I need ten minutes alone!”

He felt guilty almost immediately, but dammit, he was angry and Castiel was as good a target for it as any. After all, he was right. This was all his fault. He hadn’t decided to date a freaking vampire, then Sam never would’ve… and Jess never would’ve…

He suppressed another wave of nausea. He sat down on the nearest chair and hid his head in his arms on the table in front of him.

No, he couldn’t think like that. Sam was suffering and he surely needed Meg’s help. He couldn’t push Cas away because he suspected they were both going to run out of friends pretty fast if he pushed them away.

He wasn’t really angry at him. He was angry at the vampire that had turned Sam, that Luc or whatever. He was angry at himself, because it was his job to look after Sam and holy shit, had he dropped the ball hard. The best thing he could do now was…

Benny walked into the room, holding Dean’s phone on his hand.

“It’s been ringing all morning,” he explained. He sounded almost apologetic as he handed it to Dean. “I think you should answer. We have enough problems without adding human law enforcement to it.”

He had five missed calls from Detective Henriksen. Great. Just the guy he wanted to talk to in a moment like that.

He had just had that thought when the phone rang again. Sighing, Dean pressed the green button.

“Mr. Winchester? I’m afraid I might have more bad news for you.”

“It never rains but it pours, huh?” Dean muttered. Detective Henriksen didn’t laugh at that.

“Are you aware your workshop got broken into last night?”

“What?” Dean said. He didn’t think he managed to sound shocked enough, but the detective kept talking like he hadn’t noticed it.

“A neighbor heard the disturbance and called 911. An agent from your insurance company tells me that they had been trying to get a hold of you with no luck.”

“Yeah, I… I’m staying with friends outside of town. I turned off my phone, I… I just couldn’t deal with everything right now,” Dean said. It sounded like a credible excuse, right? “I had a fight with Jessica’s dad and…”

“Yes, Mr. Moore informed me he had been in contact with you and you sounded distressed.”

“Well, wouldn’t you be?”

“Does the name Andrew Gallagher mean anything to you?”

Dean had to take a moment to recover from that whiplash.

“No, not really.”

“His van was at your workshop.”

“Is he a client? I don’t have the names of all the people we serve memorized…”

“There’s no need to get defensive, Mr. Winchester.”

Dean was going to protest that he wasn’t getting defensive, but then he realized that was about the most defensive thing he could have said. He remained silent as detective Henriksen kept speaking:

“Andrew Gallagher was found dead by the side of the road with his throat slashed. Someone killed him, took his vehicle, drove to your workshop and broke your front window. The inside was vandalized as well.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Dean said. “Do you think this has something to do with whoever killed Sam and Jess?”

“You’re still convinced your brother is dead?” Detective Henriksen asked.

“Look, detective…”

“The man from the insurance agency said you had cameras in the workshop, but that he could only release them with either your explicit permission or a warrant,” Detective Henriksen said. “What do you think the cameras are going to show?”

Dean’s stomach was a mess again, but he managed to keep his voice calm as he spoke:

“Probably whoever broke my damn window?”

“So you have no idea who that could’ve been?”

“Not in the least,” Dean lied through his teeth. It wasn’t that hard. If it was to protect Sam, he was capable of doing much worse. “What I don’t understand is why you are talking to me. Shouldn’t you be working on getting that warrant?”

There was a pause.

“I’m working on it.”

“So what, this was just a courtesy call?” Dean groaned. Benny signaled for him to calm down and Dean forced himself to take a deep breath.

“Essentially,” Detective Henriksen admitted. “Do you know where your brother is, Mr. Winchester?”

Dean was glad they had got to the point where the detective didn’t have to pretend anymore that he didn’t think Sam had killed two people. Well, he did kill one, but that was hardly the point.

“No.”

“Would you tell me if you did?”

“Of course I would, so I could clear his name. He didn’t kill Jess.”

Detective Henriksen had nothing to say to that.

“We’ll stay in touch, Mr. Winchester.”

The call ended as abruptly as it had come. Dean threw his phone on the table and grabbed at his head. This day just keep on getting better, didn’t it?

He heard steps coming into the room.

“We have a problem,” Benny said.

“Isn’t that all that we have?” Meg said, with her usual sarcasm. Dean glared at her and she shrugged. “Okay, what’s up?”

Benny explained in general terms the conversation Dean had just had with Henriksen, while he sat there feeling sick to his stomach.

“Boris is not going to like this. He doesn’t like anything that could jeopardize the secret of our existence,” Benny said. “He could want revenge against us, against Sam. If Detective Henriksen keeps poking at this business, it could lead us straight into a war with him.”

“Great!” Meg exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air. “As if we didn’t have enough to deal with!”

Castiel seemed concerned, but Ruby just rolled her eyes.

“Seriously? Just kill the guy and be done with it, we have bigger issues!”

“We’re not killing anyone,” Meg said.

“Well, what are we going to do then?” Castiel asked.

Meg looked around the room as if she was trying to come up with a solution, without a lot of success.

“Why is everyone looking at me?” she asked in the end, uncomfortable.

“I think you already know the answer to that, suga’,” Benny pointed out.

Meg groaned and looked up at the ceiling, like she was going to find the solution up there. They didn’t bother explaining any further and when Dean turned towards Castiel, he shook his head and shrugged. Clearly this was another aspect of vampire idiosyncrasies that they weren’t privy to yet.

In the end, Meg pulled up a chair and sat down.

“Alright,” she said. “So, this is how is how it’s going to go down. Give me the phone.”


	9. Best Laid Plans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys, sorry about the random hiatus, uhhhh... I have nothing to say for myself. Have another chapter.

It was impressive how Meg took charge of the situation. She spoke to Detective Henriksen first and then demanded she’d be put on the phone with his captain.

“I don’t care what the rationale is, your detective is harassing my client at a difficult time for him,” Meg said. “Sure, get the warrant, but expect that I’ll be fighting it in court and after we’re done with that, I’m going to sue your entire department… why, yes, captain, I do think that’s necessary! My client is grieving his friend, his brother is still missing thanks to your detective’s incompetence, and you’re somehow making it seem that the vandalizing of his workplace was his fault? Tell me again how I don’t have a case!”

She almost spoke like a real lawyer, conducting herself with all the entitled knowledge of one. Fifteen minutes later, she hung up with a smile on her face.

“That was impressive,” Castiel said, with hearts pouring out of his eyes just like every time Meg did anything.

“That was just to gain us a little time,” Meg said. “There’s a lot more we’ve got to do and we need to move fast. Dean, call your insurance.”

“No, of course I’m planning to share the footage with the police,” Dean insisted to the agent that answered the call. “I’d just like to come by your office to make sure no one’s privacy is being violated. My clients are going to freak out at me, you understand… yes, I can be there in an hour or so to solve this issue, absolutely no problem.”

“What do we do once he’s there?”

“Why do you all keep asking me that?” Meg whined, but after pinching the bridge of her nose, she got it together again: “Maybe we can… steal the tape or something.”

“Meg, you do know they don’t use tapes for that sort of thing anymore, right?” Castiel pointed out. “It’s all digital now.”

“Well, in that case, we steal the floppy disks or whatever.”

“Wow, okay, grandma,” Dean said. Meg’s glare would have been more chilling if the words “floppy disk” hadn’t just left her mouth. “I have an idea. I’m going to need some materials, but I can make an electromagnet to corrupt the files in their hard drive.”

“That could potentially damage a bunch of other cases they’re investigating,” Benny said.

“I’m gonna be honest, I don’t really feel bad about that,” Dean stated, plainly. “Not when not doing it could endanger my brother even more.”

That statement was met with a deep silence and stunned stares

“What?” Dean asked, crossing his arms.

Ruby chuckled.

“And here I was thinking you were just another useless, whining human…”

Dean was starting to see why the others didn’t appreciate her much.

He was glad for the chance of doing something with his hands. Meg let him have a room (How big was this place, holy shit?) to work uninterrupted and put his music on blast. It helped to calm him down. This, he knew how to do. This, he _could_ do.

It took him longer than it would normally thanks to his dislocated wrist. He had learned to use the tools with both his hands for occasions such as this (God, he was such a dick as a kid), but he still needed to move his injured hand a bit to hold this or that and every time he did, it was like being stabbed by a needle. Castiel had offered him more painkillers, but he had passed on them, arguing he needed to focus on the electromagnet. Truth was, he was thankful for the pain. It was also a form to take his mind off of the existential nightmare that was the idea that his brother could snap and become a bloodthirsty monster at any given moment.

There was a knock on the door and Dean turned the volume down. Benny was at the door.

“I’m driving you to the insurance company’s office,” he announced. “Meg, Ruby and Cas will stay with Sam.”

“Oh,” Dean muttered, realizing this meant that he would have a lot of alone time with Benny for the first time since he’d woken up in this weird reality that was his own now. “Okay. That’s…”

“I can ask Meg to do it if you don’t want to talk to me,” he offered. “I understand how this would be… awkward.”

Dean scratched the back of his neck. Well, he was definitely right about that.

“Awkward doesn’t even begin to cover it, man.”

“I get that.” Benny fidgeted with the fisherman cap in his hands. “But it seems we’re going to be trapped in this situation for a little longer, so we might as well try and figure out how we’re going to navigate it.”

That was fair enough. Dean placed the electromagnet inside of his backpack and slung it over his shoulders.

“We might as well,” he agreed.

Benny put on the fisherman cap and a couple of shades before getting into the car with him.

“So, you don’t go puff in the sun?”

“The sunlight can still hurt our skins, but there are ways around it,” Benny explained.

He turned on the engine and slowly drove out the gate. Dean watched as Meg’s sprawling mansion got smaller in the distance.

“Does she really need all that space?” he asked.

“I don’t question what Meg wants or needs anymore,” Benny said. “From the moment I met her, she’s always done as she does and there’s no arguing with her.”

“How long ago was that?”

“One hundred and three years ago.”

“Oh,” Dean mumbled. “Okay.”

He stared at the road for a very long time. What was he even supposed to say to that?

“I had only been a vampire for sixty years at that point,” Benny said.

“Well, you don’t look two hundred years old,” Dean blurted out.

“That’s very kind of you. That’s because I was turned at thirty-seven.”

There was no sarcasm in his voice at all, like he really thought Dean was trying to pay him a compliment. And was he? He was just… saying. Because he needed to say something. He needed to fill up Benny’s stoical silence with something but he wasn’t sure what the etiquette for asking questions was in these circumstances.

“Meg is about a century and a half older than me,” Benny continued. “But there were many things she didn’t know when we first met. For example, she was convinced it wasn’t possible to subsist on dead man’s blood or extracted blood, that one couldn’t take only a small sip from a person without killing them. I had to teach her all of these things. Her Sire was a cruel vampire…”

“Yeah, I got that from them kidnapping my brother and killing his girlfriend,” Dean pointed out.

Benny nodded, like conceding he was right. Dean immediately regretted interrupting him, because now they were back to the awkward silence again.

“So, umh… how did you… know about that if you were younger than her?”

There was a long pause before Benny’s answer came:

“I used to hunt them.”

“Hunt them?” Dean repeated, astounded. “You… you hunted vampires.”

“Correct.”

That wasn’t the craziest thing that Dean had heard in the last twenty-four hours, sure, but it was still the one that made less sense to him. He’d been under Sam’s body, he’d seen him and Meg fight. He was sure any human that had tried to get in between that could have ended up broken like a twig.

“How?”

“With lots of training and weapons. They were a real infestation back in the day. The Civil War, you know,” he said, as if Dean was meant to connect point A to point B just with those words.

“What happened during the Civil War, exactly?”

“There were a lot of bodies to prey upon,” Benny explained. “There were some plantation owners that had no intention of letting go of their current way of living, so they let the vampires take and turn their soldiers and slaves with the promise they could be an army to defeat those damn Yankees. Problem was…”

“Organizing an army of newborn vampires must have been as easy as herding cats,” Dean guessed.

“And a lot bloodier,” Benny said. “Then the war was over and we were left with a lot of hungry covens. Someone had to take care of that. I was a spy for the Union, so I did a lot of travelling at night on those four years. I’ve seen them and I’ve survived them. When someone approached me with the offer to join the efforts to fight them, I couldn’t say no.” He made a pause. “I mean, I could have. I could have stayed home with my wife and have children with her and never again spare a thought for the things that go bump in the night as I grew old and arthritic. But I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Back then, they called it ‘Soldier’s Heart’. I was jumpy, restless, and aching for another fight. Also, laying with my wife was a chore. I’m sure I don’t need to explain to you why.”

Dean swallowed. The sensation of Benny’s lips over his, of his rough hands on his body, flashed through his mind. He suppressed them. There would be a time to talk about that. Never, for example. Never sounded like a good time.

“She deserved a partner that could really love her and want her,” Benny concluded with a shrug. “So off I went. This war, however… we were up against enemies who couldn’t be reasoned with, who would never surrender. We were a ragtag group of ex-soldiers, liberated slaves, operating outside of government boundaries. Most of our resources were proportioned by an old Dutch guy who apparently had a society like ours in Europe. I saw him maybe twice and I can’t remember his name.”

“It wouldn’t be Van Helsing by any chance, would it?”

Dean couldn’t see Benny’s expression behind his shades, but the way his mouth quivered indicated that he’d found his comment funny, but he was trying not to laugh.

“No, I don’t believe it was,” he answered in the end. “In any case, we were losing badly. Even with all the training in the world… well, you’ve seen it. It wasn’t good. And there was this one vampire who they called the Old Man who had no qualms about creating newborns. So every other week we had to deal with one of those, without ever having time to get to the nest, to get to him. And then Gordon Walker came up with a plan.

“To fight monsters, he said, we needed to be as strong and as fast as them. We needed to become like them. In hindsight, it might not have been a good idea to listen to him. He was a former slave who’d have to watch the vampire his masters made a deal with kill his sister. But we were all pretty traumatized, so who could blame us? And besides, our benefactor assured us there was a cure for newborn vampires that hadn’t yet fed. So we could turn, find the nest, find the Old Man and then he would turn us back if we were capable of fighting off the thirst long enough. If not… we would be given a mercifully fast death by our former brothers in arms.”

Dean tried not to think too much about it. A cure. If they had found Sam earlier, if he hadn’t killed that guy…

“So how did you choose who would grow a new pair of fangs? Did you draw straws or…?”

“I volunteered,” Benny said. “Gordon was my friend. I wasn’t about to let him get in all of that trouble alone.”

“Oh.” Dean made a pause. “Did you and him…?”

“No. He knew about me, though, and he accepted me. There wasn’t a lot of that back then, even from people you risked your necks with every day.

“So, we captured a vamp, extracted its blood and injected ourselves with it. That’s how you turn into a vampire: they have to mix their bloods with yours. The change was slower, for some reason, than if we’d just drank it. And it worked. Something we never knew is that vampires can smell each other and the humans around them, and they all have a very distinctive scent. We tracked the nest, we killed them all. And the Old Man, too. It was a victory like we’d never have before.”

“You don’t sound very victorious,” Dean pointed out.

Benny’s face went gloom.

“Gordon couldn’t handle the thirst. The vampires had some humans on their nest for feeding and when Gordon smelled them, he went crazy. He fed on them and he became strong. Almost like your brother. He was vicious and out of control, so it was up to me to…”

He made a pause. Dean wasn’t sure, but he had the impression his voice had broken slightly at that last part.

“You know, you don’t have to… I can imagine the rest.”

“No, I assure you, you cannot,” Benny said. “How would you feel if you had to kill Sam with your bare hands? If the choice was between a person you loved, someone who’d always had your back, and the innocent people he could potentially hurt?”

“I would… I would hate that,” Dean muttered, but that word didn’t even begin to cover it.

“I hated having to do that to him,” Benny said. “It broke my heart. But it was necessary.”

He went quiet for a very long time. Dean stared outside of the window, watching the traffic moved past them as they got into the heart of the city. He knew he couldn’t really answer Benny’s question. Maybe he was too much of a cowards, but if it came to it, he would always try to save Sam.

“So what happened to you afterwards?” he asked after several minutes of silence.

“I burned down the Old Man’s nest and let my comrades believe that Gordon and I both died in the fire. I went North and I fed on animals for a long time, but it’s not quite the same. It’s when you try to go vegetarian. There are going to be some vitamins missing from your diet unless you take supplements. My solution was to find work at a funeral home. Dead man’s blood tastes disgusting, but it’s a little bit better.”

“And you eventually learned to feed from people without killing them,” Dean added. He didn’t mean to sound cynical, but he couldn’t help himself.

“Through a lot trial and error, yes,” Benny affirmed. “I also kept hunting, weeding out covens when they became too malicious, which made other vampires hate me and mostly stay away from my turf. I couldn’t stand the presence of humans, though, so I stayed away from them as well. Until I found Meg, I was alone for the longest of times.”

“So what, you just… convinced her not to kill people?”

“She didn’t need a lot of convincing,” Benny said. “I was here first. I told her what I would do to her if she stayed around and started dropping bodies and she accepted my conditions. This place was just starting to become the bustling city it is now, so it was big enough for two vamps. If she didn’t like it, she could have left, but I think she was just tired. She wanted to stay somewhere for a while and this was as good a place as any. We became friends, the first friend I’d had in a very long time. And here we are.”

Dean thought he meant him and Meg, but when he looked up, he realized they’d just parked the car outside of the insurance company’s offices. Benny opened the glove compartment and took out his sunscreen, squirted a little on his hand and applied it generously over his cheeks and nose.

“Do you have any other questions?”

“Yeah, a couple hundred more,” Dean said. “First of all, why’d you tell me all of this?”

“I figured there was no damage in you knowing,” Benny replied, with a shrug. “I need you to trust me, Dean, to understand where I’m coming from. I want to help your brother, because I know exactly what he is going through right now. He is not a monster for what was done to him, he’s not monster because he couldn’t control himself before he knew there was something he needed to control.”

Dean bit the inside of his cheek. Meg had said the thing in the basement wasn’t entirely Sam. He didn’t want to say those words out loud, because he still refused to believe them, but the fact he had questioned it himself, that he hadn’t been sure…

Benny’s hand landed on his knee. His touch startled him but when he looked up, his eye met the bright blue eyes of the vampire.

“He is still Sam,” he assured him. “With time, he will become more of himself again.”

“Yeah. And then in a century or two he will be someone else entirely, but I guess I’m not going to be there to see it, am I?” Dean pointed out. “I will grow old and I will die and Sam… won’t.”

“I mean, Luc could still come for us and kill us all before any of that.”

Dean blinked, owlishly.

“Was that your idea of a joke?”

“Meg says I need to work on my humor,” Benny admitted, grumpily.

Dean wasn’t about to argue with that, but he still managed to get out a chuckle. Not because there was anything funny about the sense of impending doom that hanged over them, but because… well, a vampire making a joke. That was hilarious all by itself.

Benny smiled at him and the little wrinkles around his mouth made him think again of the handsome guy he’d accidentally spilled his beer over. It seemed like it had been ages since that night, but the fact that Benny’s rough, strong hand was still on his knee and the way he was smiling made it flash vividly through Dean’s mind again.

Okay, yeah, the guy had bitten him, but it hadn’t been all that bad, had it?

Benny moved his hand away and cleared his throat, as if he was uncomfortable all the sudden.

“We should get going.”

“Yeah, okay,” Dean said.

He stayed behind in the car for a couple more seconds after he got out, though. They hadn’t got around to talk about that other thing and maybe it was best if they didn’t. Benny had clearly just been looking for a warm meal and besides, looking at Meg and Cas, it was obvious that sort of relationship got weird. He was thankful for what Benny was trying to do for Sam and that was all that he needed to know for now.

The insurance agent who greeted them was a tall, scrawny guy who introduced himself as Garth and apologized for making Dean come all the way there.

“I understand that you’re going through a difficult time right now, Mr. Winchester,” he said as he guided them deeper inside of the building, past a bunch of grey cubicles where bored-looking employees typed their lives away. “Detective Henriksen was kind enough to let us know about your extenuating circumstances, but we told him we can’t release the footage of the cameras without your explicit permission. We told the same to your lawyer when she called.”

“I appreciate that. I’m glad you also understand the importance of keeping your client’s privacy safe,” Dean said, because there was no harm in buttering them up a little so he wouldn’t ask about the backpack he was carrying with him. “Have you, by any chance, reviewed the footage?”

“No, we were waiting for you to arrive.” Garth opened the door to an empty office, except for a table. There was a laptop open on top of it. “Once we’ve reviewed it for our claims, we will release it to the police with your permission.”

“Alright.” Dean sat down on the chair and as inconspicuously as he could, he placed the backpack right next to the computer. He hoped that Garth wouldn’t notice that his nonchalant, calm attitude was only skin deep, and if he did, that he would chalk it up to his “extenuating circumstances”. “Let’s do this thing.”

Garth pressed a button and the screen lit up showing the reception at Dean’s workshop and the cars passing on the street beyond the now destroyed window.

“So this is the morning of the day of… huh,” Garth muttered. Straight, colorful lines had began appearing on the screen, obscuring the images. “That’s weird, I don’t… oh, no!”

The screen froze and the images deformed in a mess of colorful data. Garth kept pressing letters on the keyboard and trying to click, but the computer was not responding. Dean gently took his backpack and placed it on the ground.

“Is there a problem?” he asked, innocently. “What happened?”

“I… I apologize, Mr. Winchester, there seems to be some… problem with the hard drive, I don’t… let me call my colleague.”

Two more people, a man with a mullet and then a tiny, redheaded girl came and check the computer. They both shook their heads, apparently confused.

“It’s like the hard drive just up and died!” the redheaded girl said.

“Well, that’s just too bad,” Dean said, handing the backpack to Benny, who for all intents and purposes could have been entirely invisible. “Is that the only copy there is?”

“No, we have another in the main computer,” the guy with the mullet say. “I’ll go make another.”

Dean half expected Benny to make up an excuse, like he was going to the bathroom or something (did vampires pee?), but he just silently started stalking after the other guy while Garth and the redhead argued over the computer.

“Did you drop it or something?”

“I didn’t! Could it be a virus?”

“That’s not how viruses work, Garth!”

Her phone rang a second later.

“Charlie, do you mind coming to the main office? We have an issue…”

Charlie stood up and left while Garth profusely apologized to Dean.

“We really don’t know what happened, Mr. Winchester, but I promise you, we will get in touch with you as soon as we’ve resolved this.”

“Okay, sure, don’t worry about it. Good day.”

Garth seemed relieved that Dean didn’t blow up at him or made a scene. Dean started wondering if he should to make the entire business more believable, but despite what he’d said, he felt a little bad for these geeks who would not figure out he’d fried their hard drives on purpose.

It was better that they didn’t know, though.

They walked out of the building when the sun was already starting to set. Benny took off his shades and chuckled.

“Oh, brother! That was so much easier than I was expecting,” he commented. “Modern technology isn’t all that reliable, is it?”

“What, and sending secret messages inside of cylinders was?” Dean asked.

“What?” Benny asked.

“You know, those cylinders to send secret messages… you said you were a spy… forget it,” Dean said.

Benny burst into laughter and Dean just rolled his eyes and headed for the car, but he was smiling as well. A weight had been lifted of their shoulders. Detective Henriksen would have to chase after another clue and they could focus on Sam getting better and a way to get rid of Luc once and for all.

Things were looking up.

“You know, we don’t have to go back so soon,” Benny said, right before Dean reached for the handle. “We can go grab a bite, if you want.”

Dean stared at him until Benny realized what he’d just said.

“I meant, a bite for you,” he corrected himself quickly. “I mean, dinner. You must be hungry.”

He was. The ham sandwich Cas had made for him was nothing but a distant memory at that point. The constant stress made him unable to even think about it, but now that Benny mentioned it…

“Guess I am,” Dean said. “I haven’t been eating properly these past few days. Or sleeping. Or showering, or… shaving,” he added, as he scratched his cheek. “I must look a mess.”

“I don’t know.” Benny tilted his head. “Scruffy looks good on you.”

Was he hitting on him? Really? Right now? Dean’s head was still spinning as Benny moved besides him, sinking his hands in his pockets.

“There’s a good restaurant nearby.”

“Really, you’ve tried the food?” Dean asked. Benny was already walking, so he had to trot to catch up with him. “Can you even eat?”

“I can read the reviews.”

“When did you do that?” Dean couldn’t remember a time he’d seen Benny looking at his phone or using a computer.

“Before we left,” Benny clarified. “I knew you might get hungry, so I made sure to look up places in advance… what?”

Dean stopped walking as the meaning of Benny’s words sank in his mind. Benny noticed only after a few steps and turned to look at him.

“What’s the matter, Dean?”

“Why?”

“I don’t think I follow,” Benny said.

“Why did you put that much thought into me?” Dean clarified. “No one ever… I’m not used to people… anyone, doing that.”

Benny looked so much more handsome when he smiled. His eyes became softer, his posture became more relaxed. Dean had to remind himself to breathe when the vampire came closer to him, so close he couldn’t escape his impossibly blue gaze.

“I figured a much,” he said. “But you deserve someone taking care of you.”

Dean swallowed, hoping beyond hope that Benny wouldn’t notice how uncomfortable this sudden closeness was making him.

“Is this… like a weird dinner preparation?” he asked. “Because Cas says Meg makes him take vitamins for his anemia so he would taste better when she…”

Benny grabbed him by the arm, spun him around and before Dean could protest, slammed him against the wall of the alleyway behind them.

“Hey…!” Dean protested, but the words died in his mouth when he realized Benny’s face was barely an inch away from his. The beating of his own heart became so loud he could scarcely hear anything else.

The vampire’s eyes moved down to his lips and Dean closed his eyes, not really resisting what was about to happen. There was no point. Benny was stronger, he was faster… and Dean didn’t want to. It would be a welcome distraction from anything else.

But then Benny’s hand left his shoulder. When Dean opened his eyes again, Benny had his back turned to him.

“Fellas, we don’t want any trouble with your leader,” he said.

Only then did Dean notice the three guys standing in the alley’s entrance. They were almost as tall as Benny, though not as bulky. Then again, Dean doubted there would be anyone as bulky as him.

“You don’t have an option here,” the vampire in the middle said. (Because of course they were vampires and not random homophobes. Honestly, Dean would’ve taken all the homophobes he’d fought in his lifetime over them). “Boris wants to speak to you.”

“I’m flattered, but he has my number, Luther,” Benny said. He was so close to Dean, cornering him against the wall, like he wanted to hide him from their view. “If he wants to talk, he can always call me…”

One of them was right next to him, faster than Dean could blink. His fist aimed directly at Benny, who bent slightly and groaned, but didn’t show any other signs of pain.

“Very well,” he said, his voice as firm as before. “You wanted this.”

It happened too fast for Dean to follow, just like last time. The shadows in the alleyway were growling and jumping on each other, without him being capable of distinguishing where was Benny and where were his enemies. In a moment, he was pushing one away, punching another, twisting another one’s arm. The crack of broken bones, followed by a howl of pain, echoed in his ears as Benny kicked that vampire away and turned to continue fighting the other two.

All in the time it took Dean to realize he needed to do something: either help or run the fuck out of there, which would have been the smarter option. No one ever commended Dean for his smarts.

He look around for anything that could look like a weapon and found a long wooden plank abandoned next to the dumpster. He grabbed and wielded it like a garrote, hoping to get one of the other guys and not Benny in the mass of shifting bodies they’d become.

He did, but he also realized it was like a mosquito biting a bull. The vampire turned towards him, baring his immaculate teeth and lunged himself at Dean. He held the plank up, but the vampire punched through it, splintering as easily as tearing apart paper.

“Okay,” Dean muttered, throwing the pieces down, and raised his fists.

The vampire laughed and jumped towards him. Dean understood immediately what Benny had said when he meant fighting a vampire required a lot of training. He managed a punch to the cheek with his good hand. It was like punching a wall of bricks. The pain reverberated from his knuckles, down to his forearm, and left him so numb he wondered if he’d broken that hand too.

The vampire laughed, loud and cruel. Dean ducked at the first punch and realized too late that was what he wanted, because the vamp’s foot crashed right into his shin. Dean cried out in pain as his entire leg went numb and the ground rose to meet him. The second kick aimed for his stomach, knocking the air out of him. Dean shrunk on the floor, as a more punches and kicks rained down on him, careless and angry, and all he could do was keep his hands on his head as the pain spread through every inch of his body. He could taste the blood in his mouth and noticed his vision getting blurry, like he was about to pass out…

“Leave him alone!” Benny’s voice roared somewhere.

“Stop,” said the vampire who had spoken first. Luther, Dean remembered vaguely.

The fists that tortured him did, dutifully, and Dean dared to open his eyes and look up. Benny was down on his knees. He had lost his shades and his fisherman cap and his clothes were dirty with garbage from the alleyway and his own blood, spluttering from what seemed to be a broken nose. The third vampire held his arms down, preventing him from getting up or escaping.

“Anything to say, Benjamin?” Luther asked.

“Fuck you.” Benny spat at his feet. “I’ll go.”

“Good.” Luther snapped his fingers and the vampire pulled Benny up to his feet. “Beau, bring the human too. It’ll be a deterrent in case our guest here has any… ideas.”

Someone pulled Dean’s arm with such carelessness it sent another shot of pain through his shoulder. He muffled a scream as Beau half-carried him, half-lifted him off the ground and dragged him out of the alleyway.

The sky was completely black now, or so Dean thought as they pushed him inside a… van. Was it a van? He couldn’t think. It was hard to even keep his eyes open. One of them was definitely swollen.

Another body climbed into the van with him and gentle hands started patting him up and down. He groaned every time they reached a sore spot, which, to be honest, seemed to be his entire body at this point.

“Benny…” he mumbled.

“It’s going to be okay, Dean,” Benny said. His hands ran softly through his hair. “It’s going to be fine, I promise.”

Dean really wished he could believe that.


	10. Chapter 10

“How are you feeling?”

Sam blinked up at Meg and stretched his arms over his head before sitting up on the bed where he had been laying for the last couple of hours.

“I feel… good,” he said. “I feel amazing.”

“Thirsty?”

Sam thought about it. He supposed he did, just a little, but it wasn’t like before. It wasn’t like when he couldn’t think of anything else, a hunger so intense that he thought he would die or fade away if he didn’t have any blood right that instant. After drinking several bags of blood and sleeping on the basement’s bed, he truly was almost serene.

“I’m fine.”

Meg’s eyes scanned him up and down, like she was looking for a crack in his demeanor, before she nodded and offered him his hand.

“Try these on,” she said, offering him a pair of socks and lace-up boots.

This time she’d got the number right, so Sam felt more confident to stand up in the middle of the glass from the destroyed TV that still laid on the floor.

“I’m sorry about that,” Sam said, wincing at the mess he’d left in the room.

“Doesn’t matter. It’s not like I can’t replace it,” she said, with a shrug. “The sun is down. Do you want to go outside?”

She spoke softly, giving Sam plenty of personal space. If any other woman had done this, Sam would have thought they maybe were intimidated by him and were trying to see if he was a threat or not.

He knew it was the completely opposite case with Meg. She was trying to show to him she wasn’t a threat to him.

It felt a little unnecessary, after she had fed him the blood bags and reassured him and patiently sat on the floor with him and answered all his questions. He knew they were in her place, that she was Castiel’s girlfriend and that the people who had taken him and Jess used to be her coven.

“I feel like I should be apologizing for that,” she said, and her expression was remorseful enough that he believed him.

It wasn’t just that, though. It was as if Sam could read the… vibe, Meg was giving off. Like if he was lying to him, he would know it instantly.

“You didn’t kill her.”

“No, but if I haven’t got involved with your friend…”

“If Jess hadn’t accepted dating me, she wouldn’t have been with me when they took me,” Sam had pointed out. “It can’t be helped out now.”

Meg stared at him. She reminded him of a cat, a feline with attentive eyes and her tail standing up straight. Deciding still whether to pounce or to lay down and purr.

He wondered if he looked like that now, too. He doubted it. With his size, it was impossible he would look this gracious.

“I want to kill him, though,” Sam had declared. He didn’t think Meg would judge him for expressing a thought as dark and violent as that one. “I want him for what he did to her.”

Meg had leaned over at that point.

“Get in line, boy.”

She’d warned him about who he would see when he went upstairs, but it was still a commotion to find the brunette woman, Ruby, standing in the middle of the lobby. Her eyes grew wide with a sort of excitement when they met with his.

“Oh,” she said, her lips parting with a sort of surprise. “Oh, you are…”

Sam stepped back, except he miscalculated how fast he was now. His back was against a wall he thought was far away enough that he wouldn’t have to worry about it. The pictures hanging from it trembled, but luckily didn’t fall. His fangs extended beyond his lips and his muscles were tense, every inch of him telling him that was the enemy, that he needed to fight her, that he needed to…

“Oh, come on, is that any way to greet your Sire?” Ruby said. Her tone was light, but there was something fake underneath. A sticky sweetness that was put Sam on edge. He couldn’t read her, not as easily as he could Meg, and that stressed him out even more.

“You did this to me,” he muttered, staring at her with mistrust.

“I gave you eternal life. Eternal youth. I saved you from certain death,” Ruby said. She extended her palms, as if to show that her words were sincere. “You should be thankful to me.”

Rage was like a fire burning Sam’s skin. He wanted to jump at her, to bite her throat, but at the same time, he hesitated. If his fight with Meg was anything to go by, then Ruby was also far stronger than she seemed.

But if she came any closer to him…

Did that low growl come out of his own throat?

Meg came to stand between the two, her arms outstretched at each of them.

“Don’t,” she said to him and Sam shrunk away. He didn’t know why, except that the authority in her voice couldn’t be denied. “Ruby, scram.”

“But I…!” Ruby tried protesting, but Meg cut her off.

“He doesn’t want to see you, so he shouldn’t have to. Go away. Now.”

Ruby scoffed, offended, but she slowly backed away, her eyes fixed on Sam’s. The anger in her posture couldn’t be denied, but she didn’t say or try anything else. She only turned her back on them once she reached the stairs.

“Sorry about her,” Meg told Sam, again using that soft tone she had before. “She’s convinced that just because she made you she has some sort of claim over you.”

“And… she doesn’t?”

“No.” Meg extended her hand towards him. “She’s your Sire, but she’s not the head of your coven. You don’t have to do anything she says.”

“Are you the head?”

Meg sighed deeply, like she was fearing exactly that very question.

“Benny would like to think so.”

“But you don’t want to be,” Sam pointed.

“I broke off with my first coven in less than friendly terms,” she explained. “I wouldn’t know the first thing about being a leader.”

Sam wanted to keep asking more questions (why did he felt compelled to obey her then? Why was Ruby so obsessed with him?), but he felt exhausted on the topic of vampires.

“Where’s Dean?”

“Went out with Benny to deal with some of the insurance stuff.”

How were they going to do that without explaining that a vampire had crashed through the workshop’s front window was beyond Sam, so he asked a different thing.

“And Cas?”

This time she took her time to answer.

“He’s… around.”

“He’s hiding,” Sam understood immediately. “You’re hiding him away from me because you think I might hurt him.”

Meg pressed two fingers against his forehead.

“Cas is right, it’s really annoying when people do this to you,” she commented. “Not having any private thoughts is one of those things I don’t miss about having a coven.”

Sam opened his mouth, surprised.

“Am I reading your thoughts?”

“Yes, and it’s extremely rude,” Meg shot back, moving her fingers away. “What did you think was happening here?”

“I didn’t… I thought it was just… intuition?”

“Nope. All vampires have low level psychism. You can develop it further with meditation and concentration if you want, but you will always have an idea what people around you are thinking. So just consider that your intuition got a thousand times better, Sammy.”

It was jarring to hear that nickname in her voice. She tilted her head.

“Only Dean calls you that.”

“How did you…?”

“It’s a two-way street,” Meg explained. “You’re close enough to read my thoughts, I’m close enough to read yours. Keep that in mind when you deal with other vampires.”

Sam didn’t like this. Vampires were a society where lying was functionally impossible, so he couldn’t hide his fear, his confusion. His anger. Everything that he thought was private, was laid out in the open for them to read.

“And if I don’t want them too?”

“You need to focus on something else. It’ll work like a wall around your thoughts,” Meg said. She placed her hand on the handle. “Luckily for you, you’ll have plenty of things to focus on.”

Sam was about to ask her what she meant when he heard the wind. It was… singing. He’d never heard it do that before. He almost asked Meg if there was a storm coming, because it was just so loud and strange. However when he stepped out on the porch and into the garden, he realized it was a very serene night and the wind was actually more like a breeze moving through the shrubbery.

How it moved, though. The branches and the leaves undulated, forming intricate patterns that he could almost follow but that made him dizzy if he stared at it for too long. And there was so much more around him that he had had never noticed before: the little insects’ pitter-patting on the plants, the call of an owl in the distance. There fragrances in the air, of jasmines and roses and other flowers he didn’t know, tickled in his nose, so strong he had to breathe through his mouth because he thought he would drown on them. The night sky wasn’t black like he’d always thought, but blue and purple and the stars were burning silver and golden over his head.

The world around him… it was like someone had turned on the definition in his eyes and he couldn’t suddenly appreciate so many details that his senses had been too dull to take in before. He stood mesmerized in the middle of Meg’s garden, overwhelmed by it all, by the physicality of his own body, by the air coming into his lungs. He stretched his hands like he could touch the wind.

“See?” Meg whispered behind him. “There is so much we still have to show you.”

* * *

Castiel stood by the window, with his forehead pressed on the glass. He had overheard some of the conversation Meg and Sam had in the lobby before retreating back into the room like Meg had asked him to do. He looked down at the garden where they both stood now, peacefully and concentrated.

He’d told himself a million times he understood what Meg was, he had a grasp of what she could really do and what it meant to be with her. He knew she could read her thoughts, even when she wasn’t really trying to, and it was just something that he had to learn to deal with.

He hadn’t really thought about the implications of other vampires reading hers as well. Did they know better than he did how important he was to her? When Ruby called him a pet or a toy, was she taking cues from Meg? Or maybe she said those things because she knew he would never truly understand Meg, not as fully as other vampires, not the way he was now. Not until he was her equal.

“Of course you don’t understand it,” a voice said behind him. “How could you possibly?”

Castiel shivered and took a moment to turn around. Ruby stood at the other side of the room, leaning against the wall and staring at him with a smug smirk upon her lips. Her dark eyes scanned him in a way that immediately made him jump backwards towards the window. Should he call for Meg? Should he scream for her…?

“Relax, pretty boy,” Ruby said, rolling her eyes. “Despite what Meg might have told you, I am not a complete savage and I have no intention of eating you. Besides, you smell bad.”

Castiel had showered and put on clean clothes just an hour before, so he knew that she really meant his blood. He had the impulse to cover himself with his hands, as if he was naked, but he knew it would look ridiculous, so he resisted.

“Benny says it’s rude to smell someone else’s mate,” he replied. Well, Benny hadn’t said exactly that, but it was a good enough excuse to come up with to keep her away.

Not that Ruby was coming closer. She remained immobile against the wall, chuckling at him like he’d told a mildly entertaining joke.

“You’re not Meg’s mate. Not yet. Have you drank her blood?” he asked her.

“No. She says she won’t turn me…”

“There are ways to have a blood exchange and not change you,” Ruby explained. “If you’re strong and healthy, a little bit of vampire blood will probably not turn you completely. The only way I was able to turn Sam with just a few drops was because he was practically dead already.” She sighed. “And still, no one will thank me for it.”

“Maybe because he didn’t want this,” Castiel pointed out. “And because you wouldn’t do the same for Jess.”

“Oh, please, everyone keeps bringing her up!” Ruby complained. “He’ll forget her with time. We all forget the humans we leave behind.”

“Meg never forgot her father.”

Ruby clicked her tongue. Even without psychic powers, Castiel could tell she was annoyed.

“I never should’ve told her that. I was mad with Luc at the time and frankly a little bored. I wanted to see what she would do. I never thought she would react like that, break the coven. Way out of proportion if you ask me.”

“She wouldn’t stay with people who forced her to do something she didn’t like. How is that blowing things out of proportion?”

Ruby’s laughter was cruel, but it didn’t lack humor.

“You really have no idea what you’re talking about,” she stated, shaking her head. “Breaking with your coven is one of the biggest betrayals a vampire can incur in. they’re more than just your family, they’re your people. Luc should have killed her then, but he was sure she would come back with her tail between her legs. And as for the things he supposedly forced her to do… she enjoyed it.”

Castile shuddered. Meg had only alluded to Luc taking and torturing humans, prolonging their agony during days and how she had participated in that because she didn’t know any better. What they had done to Sam and Jess, they had done to hundreds of humans, maybe thousands, through the ages and they hadn’t felt an ounce of remorse.

“She was the best at it,” Ruby kept saying. She started walking towards him with movements so fluid that it seemed like the room was moving around her instead of the other way around. “You should have heard her laugh when the blood bathed her.”

“You’re lying,” Castiel said, but his voice came off regrettably broken. There was doubt in the back of his mind, like insidious seeds watered with every word that came out of Ruby’s mouth.

“I don’t know why she stopped. She loved it,” Ruby kept saying. She was now close enough that she could stretch her hand and touch Castiel’s cheek. “Sam would love it too, if he just let himself be what he is.”

“What are you trying to say?” Castiel asked, narrowing his eyes at her.

“Look at them!” Ruby said, pointing over his shoulder.

Meg and Sam were still outside in the yard, the both of them looking up at the sky. Castiel couldn’t hear what they were saying from all the way up there, but he noticed that Meg had her head thrown back and was laughing jovially.

“If she wants a mate that was born this century, that’s fine,” Ruby said. “But why do you think she would choose you? You’re a weak little human that could never compete.”

Castiel stepped away from the window. He knew, logically, that Ruby was only saying these things because she wanted to get under his skin, make him jealous, for petty reasons only she would understand but probably had to do with her wanting Sam to herself.

He hated that it was working.

“You have no idea what’s between Meg and me,” he said. He wished he could have sounded a little firmer, a little more confident.

And that her laughter didn’t make her shiver.

“She’s infatuated with you, but do you really think it’s going to last?” she asked. She stepped closer again and put a hand on the back of his neck. “Maybe that’s why she doesn’t want to turn you right away. She’s waiting for it to go away.”

“It won’t.”

“Oh, please. If she really wanted you, she would’ve done what I did with Sam. She would’ve just taken you.”

Castiel tried to grab at her wrist to get her to stop touching him, but of course, she was too fast for him. However, in a second, she was touching him again, her fingers sliding softly from his temple to his chin. Her smile was sharp.

“But you want her and that’s completely understandable,” Ruby continued. “I sympathize with you. I know what it’s like to want someone so bad it physically pains you.”

“You’ve never loved anyone,” Castiel shot back. It was weak and he knew it. Ruby dismissed him with a roll of her eyes.

“Vampires don’t love the same way you do,” she told him instead. “No. I promise you, when you’re like us, you would understand how much more profoundly you can know and love someone.”

“You just said Meg won’t turn me because she will get tired of me,” he pointed out, narrowing his eyes.

“No, but I could do it. Right here, right now,” Ruby offered him. “And once you’re a vampire, once you’re like her, you will truly understand her. I can do that for you.”

“Why?” Castiel asked, narrowing his eyes at her.

“Let’s say, I’m feeling generous.”

It was a trap. He would have to have been a complete moron not to see it. She wasn’t offering this out of the goodness of her heart, she was doing it out of pure, petty jealousy. Because Meg was the one teaching Sam how to live his new life, she was the one earning his trust right now and Sam wanted nothing to do with Ruby. So she was going to use Castiel to hit Meg back. She was going to turn him to piss her off. She didn’t care about Castiel or Sam or what either of them might have been feeling. They were mere playthings for her games, to manipulate however she liked.

It was cruel and horrible and he hated her for it. He didn’t even try to hide it, because he knew Ruby would see it in his eyes, she would sense it in his thoughts.

But he also couldn’t hide exactly how tempted he was by her words, how much he wish it could be that simple. If he turned, then he could be with Meg truly, unconditionally. And he wanted that more than he had wanted anything else in his life. He wanted to be worthy of Meg.

“What do you say?”

“No.”

His negative had the consistency of wet paper. Even if he hadn’t wanted it so badly, so deep in his bones, he couldn’t fight Ruby off if she decided to just go for it. He couldn’t fight her even if she decided she was going to kill him.

And she knew it, too.

“Well, you can always tell that to Meg,” she said. She put a finger under his chin and softly pushed it up, exposing his throat to her. “She might even believe you.”

“Stop.”

Ruby grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him around, pushing her away with enough force that he stumbled down and ended up sitting on the bed. Ruby was on him before he could even understand what was going on, her thighs trapping him down on the mattress as her hands came to grab his cheeks, pulling his face up.

“Now, I’ll have to drink enough to leave you almost dry,” Ruby said, licking her lips that suddenly looked red blood and thicker than before. “It might hurt and it might be slow, so I suggest you stay very, very still.”

Castiel’s heart was beating hard against his ribs. His mind was racing. Should he scream? Was it even worth it? Would Meg arrive to save him before Ruby did some real damage to him?

He knew the answer to all of that already, but also, he would hate himself if he didn’t try something.

Then again… maybe he didn’t really have do to anything at all.

“Knock yourself out,” he said. “And I hope you choke.”

Ruby opened her mouth and her fangs glistened under the light. It wasn’t pleasant like when Meg did it, not at all. It hurt and it made his body rigid, the fear blinding him as every instinct on his body told him to fight, to run, to get away from this predator that was trying to kill him and…

Ruby retched and recoiled. She came short of spitting out his blood as she stood up, walking away from him.

“Oh, my God!” she complained, shaking her head. “Oh, my God, it’s worse than I thought!”

“Yes, I guess I haven’t really been taking my iron supplements,” Castiel replied, rubbing at the spot where she’d bit him. His fingers came out stained with red.

“How the fuck… how does she do it?!” Ruby asked.

“I guess she’s just used to it by now,” Castiel said, calmly. He laughed at the disgust in Ruby’s face. “See, there is something I understand about vampires. They have very, very keen senses. That includes taste.”

Ruby’s eyes glimmered with fury.

“I can still break your neck, you stupid little boy!”

“I mean, you can, sure,” Castiel said, with a shrug. “But if you’d turned me, you could have plausible deniability that you did it out of spite. You could have lied that I asked you to. Meg would be mad, but she would decide we have bigger fish to fry and you might have got away with it. If you kill me, on the other hand… well, I guess then you would find out exactly how much she really cares about me.”

Ruby scoffed and turned away from him. He had the impression she was suppressing another heave.

“You’re so annoying.”

“I can be a downright nuisance,” Castiel admitted. He stood up and walked closer to her, smiling. “The problem is, I’m the nuisance the head of your new coven is attached to. And there’s nothing you can really do about it, is there?”

The outright hatred in Ruby’s eyes as she turned to him made him doubt that maybe he had gone a little too far. Then again, she had just threaten to kill him and bit him with the intention of harming him, so he really couldn’t care less.

“Get used to this, Ruby,” he told her. “We might be sharing an eternity soon enough.”

And with that, he turned his back on her and walked out of the room.

It wasn’t until he closed the bathroom’s door behind him that he allowed himself to cry out in the panic he’d been suppressing since Ruby stepped into his room. He leaned against the door and slid down to the floor, hiding his face against his knees, forcing himself to breathe slowly and calmly, in order to suppress all the sobbing that was rising to his throat.

Fucking vampires.

He was scared in Meg’s presence sometimes, in the way a sailor would be scared of the sea. There was a possibility he could drown there, but he could still be in awe at how majestic and beautiful she was even through his fear, he could still love her enough to lay down his life for her.

Ruby was terrifying like a psychopath with a chainsaw. Definitely not pleasant, not poetic and with double the chances of killing him.

After a few seconds, he was fairly certain he could stand up without his trembling knees causing him to collapse. He opened the cabinet to find some peroxide and some bandages. There was no way to hide the bite and he really hoped Meg wouldn’t believe he had wanted Ruby to bite him. He wasn’t too worried about it, though. She would know, just like she knew everything else about him.

He finished bandaging himself up and decided this was as good a time as any to start dinner for himself and Dean. They should be getting back any second now and cooking could only be good to release some of the tension he’d just gone through.

He had just put the water for the spaghetti to boil when his phone rang in his back pocket. Dean’s name flashed on the screen.

“Hey, are you and Benny on your way back?”

“Benny and your dear little human friend are not available right now,” an unknown voice answered on the other end of the line.

The wooden spoon he had been using to stir the pot froze.

“Who is this?” he asked, as his body tensed up, alert.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” the man said. “Get Meg here.”

“Why? What do you want with her?”

“None of your concern, little boy. Just put her through.”

It was a vampire. He had no doubt about it. He wasn’t sure what gave it away. Maybe it was just the fact that he called him a “boy”. Something in his cadence. He wasn’t sure.

All he knew was that there was no way this could be good news for them.

He turned off the stove and dragged his feet towards the lobby.

Sam and Meg had apparently just come inside. They were laughing at something and Sam’s eyes were bright and wide, but his laughter died down when his eyes set down on him.

“Oh. Cas… I…” he started.

There were so many things Castiel wanted to say to him. He wanted to apologize. He wanted to assure him that no matter what he did, to him he was still his friend and nothing would change that. He wanted to offer condolences for Jess’ death. Offer support. Offer him… something.

Instead he stood where he was, like a deer in the headlights, trembling until Meg noticed there was something wrong.

“What happened to your neck?” she asked, moving closer to him immediately. “What is it?”

Castiel swallowed and just extended the cellphone towards her. He didn’t think he could speak without breaking down.

Meg pressed it against her ear with a frown.

“Hello?” There was a pause and her face morphed completely. The confusion was replaced by surprise, with her eyebrows rising high, before her lips tightened in a furious line. “Boris. Why are you calling? What did you do?” Another pause. Meg bared her teeth. “Yes. I understand. No, I don’t think that will be possible. You’re making a huge mistake, but it would be even worse for you if anything were to happen to them.”

Another pause, longer this time.

“We’ll be there,” she said, before ending the call by pressing her finger so hard into the screen it cracked.

Castiel couldn’t care less.

“What is it?”

“What did he say?” Sam asked at the same time.

Meg paced around the lobby for a moment without looking at them.

“Meg, what’s wrong?” Sam insisted.

She stopped and turned to look at them.

Ruby’s eyes got shinier when she was angry. Meg’s, however, got dark, like storm clouds right before a storm at sea.

“He took Dean and Benny,” she told them. “I’m going to rip his head off.”


	11. Negotiations

Dean woke up, for the second time in as many days, with his muscles aching and no idea of where he was. His vision was blurry, so for a second, he didn’t know what that thing that was floating above his head was. After blinking a few times, however, he realized it was a face.

A round face with a beard and soft blue eyes boring down on him. A face whose lips were moving, telling him words that he was listening, but couldn’t quite get the meaning to.

A face he knew.

“Benny.”

His voice came out like a strangled croak, but Benny closed his eyes and sighed out in relief.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I’m here, love.”

Love? Where did that come from?

It didn’t matter. Dean was too tired and in too much pain to make sense of it. He closed his eyes again and as much he hoped for it, he didn’t fall unconscious again.

“Where are we?”

“That’s a little hard to explain. To be honest with you, I’m not quite sure. Some type of basement, I think?”

Dean was vaguely aware that his hands were on both sides of his head, holding him very still. When he opened his eyes again, he realized that his head was laying on Benny’s lap.

“What happened to me?” he asked instead.

“Boris’ people hurt you,” Benny explained. “They thought it would be fun to make me watch.”

The last words came with a growl of anger, the same type of growl that he’d heard when Sam and Meg had been duking out in his destroyed workshop and then later when Benny had fought the guys who’d ambushed them. The growl of an absolutely furious vampire.

Dean would’ve got scared if he hadn’t been so busy assessing everything that was broken or hurt in his own body.

“Well, fuck,” he mumbled. Benny let out something that resembled a chuckle and his hands moved from his face to his neck and then down to his torso.

“I was afraid you might have had a concussion.”

“I’m not sure I don’t. My head hurts like hell…” Dean started and then whimpered as Benny’s fingers brushed at his side, sending a bolt of dull pain through him. “Okay, everywhere feels like hell.”

“They might have cracked a rib,” Benny explained.

“Why?” Dean groaned. “What the fuck do they want with us?”

“I don’t think it’s us, exactly. We’re hostages.”

“Hostages?” Dean repeated. His brain felt like pure, absolute mush, so it took him a second to make the connection. “He wants to get to Meg.”

“Yes,” Benny said. “I don’t know if he’s working with Luc or…”

“It doesn’t matter,” Dean said. He made an effort to sit up, but the dark walls that surrounded him combed and threaten to fall on him, so he quickly laid back down and closed his eyes. “Oh, shit. Well… how are we going to get out here?”

There was a silence so long that Dean was sure he had passed out once again.

“Benny?”

“I’m working on it,” Benny said.

Dean opened his eyes and studied his worried face for a second, taking in the frown between his eyebrows and the way his mouth was curved down.

“You don’t have a plan? Aren’t you a super… spy vampire fighter that trained with Van Helsing himself?”

“No, not exactly,” Benny replied with a sigh. “I actually found three ways of getting out of here while you were unconscious, but there are two main problems with that.”

“Which are?”

“First of all, it would still have to fight half a dozen of Boris’ vampires.”

“Fair enough,” Dean said. He would have nodded, but he wasn’t sure he could do that without his neck snapping in half. “And the other problem?”

Benny’s fingers ran through his hair.

“I would have to leave you behind.”

Dean wasn’t sure if he was hallucinating because of the concussion he might or might not have, but there was such… tenderness in Benny’s voice. Tenderness and confidence, like he knew that any plan that didn’t include dragging his useless human ass out of there as well wasn’t even worth considering.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Are you serious right now?” Benny asked, quirking an eyebrow at him.

“I mean, it sounds logical. You get out of the clutches of the psycho vamp who wants you dead, you come back with a plan and a way to decapitate him.”

“And he kills you in the meantime!”

“Yeah, well… that would at least be new. This almost getting killed by vampires is getting old,” Dean said. He couldn’t shrug either. He hated everything about this. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. If I’m deadweight, then I’m deadweight.”

“Dean, you are most definitely…”

“He wants to get to Meg. Which means, he wants to get to Sam, because he is now part of… that thing vampires form in groups, what’s it called…”

“Coven.”

“Right, that. He’s part of Meg’s coven. So he’s going to come here, along with her, and he’s going to be in danger.” Dean breathed out, slowly. All of that thinking and talking was making him very, very tired. “Which means you need to be out there fighting to protect him.”

“Dean…”

“I can’t… I can’t do that anymore. Not like this.” He would have pinched his nose or rubbed his eyes, to prevent himself from breaking down entirely, but he couldn’t. “I know he’s stronger now, but if these guys could fuck _you_ up…”

“Dean…”

“That means he’s in danger. And since I can’t help him, you have to do it.” Dean hanged on to whatever he could, which turned out to be Benny’s shirt. He made an effort to open his eyes, so the vampire couldn’t escape his gaze. “Promise me.”

“I don’t have to promise you anything,” Benny said. “We’re going to get out here and you’re going to see Sam again and everything will be fine.”

Dean laughed, but he stopped because his side hurt when he did that.

“I wish I could believe that,” he said. “Just… humor me, okay? Promise me you will watch out for Sam.”

Benny stared down at him, with a hand on his cheek and that pained expression on his eyes again. It must have been worse than Dean thought. That was the way that he would look at an injured dog that had just been run over and was still breathing, but had very little chances of survival.

“Benny…”

“I promise.”

Dean let out a deep sigh and laid back down again. Benny’s thighs weren’t even that bad as a pillow.

“Okay,” he mumbled. “Good.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I think I’m going to pass out again,” he said, trying to sound lighter than he felt. “Wake me up when something interesting happens.”

“Don’t worry,” Benny whispered as he ran his fingers through his hands again. “I’m sure we won’t be here that much longer.”

* * *

Sam was reeling.

“We have to go!” he screamed. “Immediately!”

“I agree with you, but you need to calm down,” Meg said. “We have to be smart about this…”

“They have Dean!” He’d punched he wall to his left. He’d expected it to hurt, but the plaster sank under his knuckles and the picture frames that hanged from it vibrated. One of them even fall, punctuating his statement with a din of broken glass.

Meg was immediately on him, her hand on his throat and a fierce expression in her eyes. She bore her teeth in an unmistakable warning.

“You _need_ to stop doing that to my house.”

Sam forced himself to breathe in. It wasn’t easy, not when every nerve and every instinct in himself was telling him that he needed to fight, that he needed to get Dean, now, right this instant.

“What are we going to do?” he asked, through gritted teeth in order not to start shouting again.

“Boris wants a parlay,” Meg said, looking down at her phone. “And that’s exactly what I’ll give him.”

“Meg, you can’t be serious,” Castiel intervened. “He’s going to…”

“Kill me? Maybe.” Meg shrugged. “Probably not. He’d be a fool to try. But I am going to kill him.”

“And how exactly do you intend to do that?”

Ruby stood on the stairs, leaning against the rail with her arms crossed over her chest. She looked mildly bored, like the fact that two of their group had been kidnapped wasn’t interesting at all to her.

Meg stayed silent for a second.

“I’ll figure something out.”

“No, you have to figure something out now!” Sam demanded. “Dean is danger you can’t just…”

Meg growled at him. Not even in a loud manner, just a deep, angry growl that sent a terror so deep inside of him that he was forced to stand back, to try and make himself as small as he could so she wouldn’t hurt him.

Which was ridiculous. She wouldn’t. She had been kind with him all that time, she had answered his questions and talked him through his thirst. She was tiny and he had to be, at least, a bit stronger than her on those basis alone.

But in that moment, he was certain that she could, if she wanted, break him like a twig.

“You don’t give the orders here, boy,” she said. She didn’t even raise her voice, but it still sent a shiver down Sam’s spine. “I do. And you’d do well to remember it.”

“I’m… I’m sorry…” Sam mumbled.

“Meg.” Castiel put a hand on her shoulder, which made Sam cringe, because it was the equivalent of petting a rabid tiger.

Meg, however, took in a deep breath and suddenly she was once again giving off that tranquil, confident calm from before.

“Okay,” she said. “We’re going to see Boris. The three of us. And we’re going to get Benny and Dean back.”

“That’s not much of a plan,” Ruby pointed out.

“We’re taking machetes with us.”

“That’s more like it.” Ruby grinned.

“And what do I do?”

Meg turned towards Castiel and grabbed both of his hands.

“You stay put.”

“What?” Castiel’s eyes opened wide. “Meg, you can’t just…”

“I’m not taking you into an enemy vampire’s lair,” Meg shot back. She was firm, but nowhere near as scary as she had been with Sam. She put a hand on Castiel’s cheek and her voice dropped to an almost whisper that was still audible enough for Sam: “I can’t lose you.”

Sam felt awkward. Uncomfortable. Like he was seeing something that wasn’t meant for him.

At the same time, his heart ached. Jess had touched him like that when he was angry or upset about something. She had talked to him like that when he was frustrated, when he was about to do or say something stupid.

And it hit him like a wave that she was never going to do that again. That he was never going to see her again. So many things had happened he’d barely had time to process the fact she was gone forever.

Meg glanced at him. The expression on her face was indecipherable, but the thoughts, the feelings around her, weren’t angry anymore. Sympathetic.

“The garden shed,” she told them. “There are some weapons there. The shinier and sharper the better. Bring them here.”

Ruby practically jumped the last few steps of the stair and landed right next to Sam.

He took a second to recover and headed for the door. He looked over his shoulder one more time, to see Castiel pulling Meg into a tight embrace, as they whispered to each other words that weren’t meant for him.

It still ached. He was still thinking of Jessica. And he was still scared that he might be grieving over Dean the same way soon.

He hated everything about this.

Which was why it was so jarring when a feeling of almost bustling joy grazed him.

He turned around to find Ruby smiling at him.

“Finally alone,” she commented.

She stretched her hand to touch his arm, but Sam just started walking faster to get away from her. The garden and the night that had seen so magical just a moment before now appeared like a useless distraction to him, something he needed to actively shutdown to concentrate on the fact that he had to rescue Dean.

It wasn’t easy with Ruby practically at his heel.

“I have been meaning to talk to you, Sam. From the moment I knew you were here, that you were…”

“Well, I don’t want to talk to you,” Sam snapped at her. “Not right now.”

“I understand that,” Ruby said, but despite the flatness of her tone, she couldn’t hide the contempt she was feeling. Or perhaps she didn’t want to hide it.

Either way, Sam didn’t even look at her as he pushed open the garden shed’s doors. There was a table in the middle with a mess of tools on it: gardening gloves, pruning shears, garden shovels. There were bags of dirt and even some empty pots pushed against the corners. The typical things one would find in a place like this.

The machetes and the shotgun that hanged from the wall, however, were far from it.

Sam grabbed it and checked it. It seemed well-maintained, no traces of rust anywhere. Meg had told him decapitation would be a good way to kill a vampire. Maybe a bullet to the head would be just as effective?

“Nobody’s been fast enough to shoot at a vampire in the face before,” Ruby said.

“Don’t read my thoughts,” Sam groaned. He put the shotgun aside and looked around, trying to figure out where the bullets would be.

“Can’t help it. Meg probably told you all about it, didn’t she?”

Sam groaned. He saw no point in hiding his irritation, his anger towards her. Maybe that would be enough of an answer for her.

There was a rustic chest of drawers against the wall. Sam knelt in front of it and started opening them, one by one. Seeds, a pair of broke shears, a racket’s head…

“I get that you’re angry right now,” Ruby insisted. “In time, however, you’re going to come to see the gift I gave you.”

Bullets. They rolled over the wood when he opened the last drawer. Sam grabbed them and stuffed his pockets with them.

“You don’t have to listen to Meg, you know?” she continued as Sam loaded the shotgun. “When all of this calms down…”

Sam raised the weapon at her, pointing straight at her head. His dad had been a Veteran and he had spent many weekends teaching him and Dean their way around these things. He knew exactly how much pressure he needed to put on the trigger to try out his theory about vampires and bullets.

“You’re not going to shoot me,” Ruby huffed.

“You sound awfully sure of yourself,” Sam replied. “I don’t think Meg will be mad at me for it.”

“And I think having one less vampire with you when you heroically burst into Boris’ lair, where you will already be hopelessly outnumbered and outmatched, to try and save your brother might hurt your chances of success,” she replied, grinning again. “I’m on your team, Sam. And like it or not, you need me.”

He hated that she was telling the truth. And he hated that he believed her, because nothing in his new “intuition” indicated that she was lying. But even if she was, he wasn’t going to pull the trigger for the simple reason that she was right: his priority right now was Dean.

He slowly lowered the shotgun.

“Smart boy,” Ruby congratulated him.

She grabbed the machetes from the wall and tried out their blade with the edge of her thumb. She tucked one inside of her jacket before handing the other to Sam. All with slow, deliberate movements. That’s why it took Sam by surprise when her hand clasped his wrist, tightly enough to immobilize him.

“You will come to see things my way, Sam,” she told him, in such a soft tone that she sounded like a mother scolding a child that didn’t understand what they’d done wrong. “I have all the time in the world to convince you.”

“Dean doesn’t have that time,” Sam shot back, yanking his hand away from her.

Meg was waiting for them near the gates, in a black Mercedes car that seemed like it had come right out of a freaking commercial. Dean would’ve hated how modern and shiny it looked.

She wasn’t even looking at them as they handed her the other machete. She was looking up at the windows and when Sam followed her gaze, he thought he saw a curtain moving, like someone watching them from a distance.

“Is it safe to leave Cas here alone?” Sam asked.

“He knows not to open the doors until we’re back,” Meg said.

“And if we don’t come back?”

Meg glared at Ruby.

“Your optimism is inspiring,” she said and opened the driver’s door.

“I’m just being realistic,” Ruby said once they were all inside the car. “What exactly is the plan here, Meg?”

Meg pressed the remote control and the gates slowly parted to let them through.

“Try not to die.”

* * *

Dean kept slipping in and out of consciousness during the next couple of hours. Every time Benny would insist that he needed to rest, but every time, he wouldn’t until Benny had reassured him again that he would look out for Sam.

He was really starting to worry. Well, he had been worried since he’d smelled Luther and his gang following them on the street. He had been worried when they put a hood over his head and dragged him to that place, and even more so when two of those brutes had held Dean by the arms right in front of him and used him as a punching bag.

Now, he was starting to get scared.

What if they had done some real damage to him? What if he couldn’t come back from it? What if he they stayed there far too long and by the time Meg came to their rescue and they took Dean to a hospital…?

His face was pale and he shivered now and then, even though Benny had draped his jacket over him. His lips were parted and his breathing was heavy and irregular. It wouldn’t be difficult, to feed him enough blood for him to turn. He might even be thankful for it. He would get to be like his brother, he would get to live. Benny would be saving him.

And also condemning him to a life in the shadows.

Benny found himself looking at the veins in his wrist. Would it really be that bad…?

He was a selfish asshole. He didn’t want this beautiful boy to die in his arms. He wanted to keep him, after telling himself over and over that he couldn’t. Just something for himself, someone he could love unconditionally. Didn’t he deserve that?

But then again, that had been the sort of thinking that had led Ruby’s actions in turning Sam. And Sam hated her. He didn’t think he could handle Dean hating him.

So he just sat there, holding his head and calming him down when he woke up. Feeling like a completely useless piece of shit, until Luther and his minions came.

He heard their steps above his head, follow by the creaking of the door. He curved his back forwards, his teeth coming down in a menacing snarl.

There were only three of them. He could, maybe, on a good day, have fought every single one of them, to the death if it had been necessary.

But he wasn’t having a good day. And they could hurt Dean if he wasn’t careful.

They knew it too, because Luther beamed at him when he saw him.

“Aw, are you worried about what we’re going to do to your human pet?” he said, in a mocking tone.

“If you touch him again…” Benny started.

“What are you going to do, tough guy?” Luther said, barking down a laughter.

Benny forced himself to calm down. He was right. There was very little that he could do in those circumstances.

“That’s right. Now, are you going to come with us nicely?”

Benny bit back a sarcastic reply. Carefully, he laid Dean back down on the floor. His bright green eyes opened wide immediately.

“Benny?”

“It’s going to be okay, Dean,” Benny told him, so he wouldn’t try to do anything stupid. “I’m going to have a nice, polite chat with these gentlemen, and then I’ll be right back.”

Dean moved his eyes between him and the vampires standing right in front of him.

“That does not seem like a good idea…”

“No, it doesn’t,” Benny admitted. But he stood up and moved towards them slowly, his hands open up in the air so they would know that he meant them no harm.

The two minions grabbed his arms and held them back. Luther stood in front of him and moved his face closer to his.

“I know you, Benjamin,” he said, lowering his voice.

“Yeah, I know you too,” Benny replied, rolling his eyes at him. “You’re the annoying little shit that…”

Luther’s fist impacted straight into his stomach, turning his words into a jumbled spurt. Benny doubled over and would have fallen if it wasn’t for the vampires holding him over.

“1874, Louisana,” Luther told him.

“Is that… is that supposed to mean anything to me?” Benny gasped, defiantly.

“You and your friends raided a nest,” Luther reminded him. “You killed a female vampire named Kate.”

“Yeah, doesn’t ring a bell…”

Another punch, harder than the previous one. Benny bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood.

“She was my mate,” Luther explained. His eyes flashed with overflowing hate. “You killed my entire coven. I joined Boris thereafter and he promised me one day, I was going to have the chance to rip your head off with my own hands. And when he’s done with you today, I’m going to. But not before I drain your mate right in front of you.”

Benny looked up at him, as a cold, inexorable terror spread faster than any pain, any torture Luther could inflict on him. He could’ve tried protesting Dean wasn’t his mate, but that would’ve been even more dangerous. The only reason they hadn’t beaten him to death yet was because they thought he had some value for him and for Meg.

“I hope you don’t think it’s going to be that easy,” he said, instead.

Luther’s smile was brimming with happiness.

“Oh, I think it’s going to be delicious.”

He gestured at the other too and together, they dragged Benny towards the stairs.

He couldn’t resist looking over his shoulder one last time, at Dean’s unmoving body on the floor of that horrible, bare basement.

He was going to come back for him. He was going to get him out of there. This, he was sure.

The house where they were… well, it wasn’t a house at all. In fact, as soon as they crossed a couple of windowless rooms with bare brick walls, Benny realized what it really was: a big, industrial warehouse somewhere. Probably not really the place where the nest stayed, because Boris wouldn’t be stupid enough to bring them there.

But he seemed to have been stupid enough to bring his entire coven along, if only as a display of force. Benny counted eight vampires in total, both male and female, standing around the open space of the warehouse. Boris sat in the middle of them in what could only be described as a makeshift throne: a chair with a long back and armrests. Benny had only seen him a couple of times in the past decades and of course, he hadn’t changed much. He still had that ugly goatee, the hideous curls sprouting from his head like roots and the same smug face as before. A big ring shone in his finger as he lifted a chalice, presumably filled with blood, up to his lips.

Pretentious prick.

The vampires that held Benny pushed him forwards and forced him down to his knees.

“See? He’s in mint condition, just as I promised,” Boris said.

Benny looked up to see Meg, Ruby and Sam standing in the middle of the room. The tension in the air was palpable.

“And the human?” she asked after sparing a quick glance to Benny. “There was a human boy, too.”

“Oh, him.” Boris made a dismissive gesture. “Yes, he’s alive.”

Sam immediately showed his teeth, furious.

“If you did anything to my brother…”

“We did plenty,” Boris admitted, with a shrug. “I don’t know why you care so much, though. He’s just a human.”

Sam took a step forwards, but stopped when Meg extended her arm to crash it against his chest. She threw a glare at him and Sam slowly backed off, hunching his shoulders a little and closing his mouth. He still stared at Boris with pure hatred in his eyes, but it was good to see that, at least for the time being, Meg was managing to keep him under control.

“Benny, is Dean alive?” Meg asked him.

“Last I saw him, he was, but they beat him up pretty badly,” he answered. He hoped she would sense exactly how badly, that she would see how worried and how desperate he was to rescue him.

Her face didn’t change as she turned towards Boris again.

“Okay. I’m listening.”

Boris handed his chalice to one of his minions and stood up.

“So, I admit it. I did tell your Sire about what you were doing,” he confessed. “I made him a deal: if he wanted to kill you and moved in on your territory, we could be allies. Friends, even.”

“Is this really supposed to endear me to you?” Meg quirked up an eyebrow.

“I didn’t count on him being so fucking insane,” Boris continued. “He didn’t want just a piece of the territory, he wanted the entire city. And he said that once he was done dealing with you, he was going to come wipe me out of the map.”

“Ruby?”

“It’s true,” Ruby confirmed. “Luc didn’t like something about his face. Can’t imagine what it was.”

Nobody laughed at her quip. Perhaps because they realized doing so would accelerate the inevitable conflict and no one wanted to make the first move.

“He said he was going to kill me and take over my coven. Well, I’m not about to let that happen, so I’m offering it to you,” Boris said, taking step towards her. “As my mate.”

Meg sighed deeply and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Dear, this offer didn’t work on me fifty years ago, I don’t know why you think this time would be different. Just because my Sire has decided to come disrupt my peace?”

“Well, your one-woman army situation wasn’t exactly cutting it, was it? Not that what you have now is any better,” Boris pointed out. “You call this a coven? This one betrayed her own Sire and there’s nothing to indicate she won’t do the same to you.” Boris said, pointing at Ruby. “This one is half savage still,” he added, gesturing at Sam. “And this one…” Boris slowly turned his back on Meg to point at Benny. “This one is just a disgrace. Do you know what he used to do, who he used to be?”

“I know it better than you,” Meg assured him.

“We can accept you and the other two if you want,” Boris continued, as if she’d said absolutely nothing. “But this one has to die.”

“So that’s the price of admission?” Meg asked. “I let you kill Benny and you benevolently take us in so we can fight off Luc, is that it?”

“I’m glad you caught the gist of it, yes. I’ll even allow you to turn your precious human toy if he means so much to you,” Boris proposed. “But we can’t just let _him_ live.”

Benny caught a whiff of Luther standing right behind him. The moment Meg gave her answer, no matter what it was, it was going to turn ugly. Luther was all too eager to kill him, Benny could feel the hate and the fury practically radiating from his body.

“So?” Boris asked. “Choose. Now.”

It didn’t look good. They were outnumbered three to one. If Meg was smart, she would say yes to him. She would bid her time. She would try to save herself and Sam…

A twinkle of bells somewhere distracted them. All vampires turned their eyes on Meg as she calmly sank her hand in her pocket and took out her cellphone, unlocking it casually with one finger.

“Are you serious?” Boris asked her, offended.

“Sorry, I got to take this,” Meg said, writing a quick message before she put it back on her phone. She grinned at Boris. “No deal.”

The vampires around them growled with anger. Boris calm tone changed immediately as Luther put both his hands at the sides of Benny’s head. He didn’t even have time to be afraid.

“Well, that’s a shame…”

The warehouse doors burst open and a figure ran in, flailing their arms in the air. Their clothes and body were on fire and they howled in pain as they ran forwards. All the vampires instinctively jumped backwards, trying to avoid touching the flames until the figure fell face flat on the ground at Boris feet.

A window broke somewhere to their left and Benny smelled more than saw the Molotov cocktail flying in.

And then all hell broke loose.


	12. Coven

Sam lost himself in the violence faster than he was expecting to.

Boris’ vampires kept jumping at him, growling and screaming and showing them his teeth, but it was like they were moving too slow even for him. He swung the machete in his hand, punched and kicked and bit. Meg had warned him that the only way to kill them was to get to their heads, but they couldn’t try to choke him if he aimed for their arms.

Last time he’d fought another vampire, Meg, it had been very different. He was maddened by thirst and all he knew was that she had pushed him away from his prey and he wasn’t satisfied yet. And she wasn’t trying to truly hurt him or kill him. These guys were, so Sam felt no remorse when the edge of his weapon met their necks or when he pushed them away from him and their clothes caught fire.

The flames were expanding through the warehouse with amazing speed. He could hear Meg and Ruby fighting somewhere behind him, but some of the vampires fled the moment they realized what was happening.

He killed one last opponent and looked around.

Benny was locked in a desperate fight with another vampire. They were growling loudly and keeping each other at arm’s length, wrestling to apparently try and choke each other.

Sam punched blindly at the vampire that tried to get in his way and ran towards him. One swing of the machete later, the vampire’s head rolled on the floor while Benny jumped backwards to get out of the way.

He laughed, relieved.

“Perfect timing, brotha’!”

“Where’s Dean?”

“Basement,” he said, pointing at a door behind him. “Go get him.”

Sam started running towards it, but he stopped at the last second. He turned around. Meg was rolling on the floor, locked in a tight embrace with another vampire, kicking and moving and trying to escape her.

It didn’t make sense. Dean was his brother, he had cared for him his entire life. He’d known Meg for less than two days. But he was so reluctant to leave her, surrounded by enemies, with the fire roaring closer…

Benny took the machete from his hand.

“Go,” he repeated. “I’ll cover her.”

Sam ran out where he’d pointed, trying to ignore the howling and screaming from the battle behind him.

He jumped down the stairs into the dark basement.

“Dean?” he called out. “Dean!”

There was a second of awful silence and then a soft voice came from behind a pile of crates:

“Sammy?”

Sam moved towards him. Dean was propped against the crates. He held a crowbar in his hand, clearly the only thing resembling a weapon he’d found. The moment he realized it was his brother there, he let out a sigh of relief and let himself slide down back to the floor.

“Shit. It’s great to see your face,” he mumbled, with an awkward laughter.

Sam moved towards him and put his hand son Dean’s cheeks. He looked so pale and he was shaking despite the rising heat in the basement. But he was alive and talking and moving and that was more than enough for now.

“Right back at you,” he said, forcing out a smile. He wanted to reassure him that everything was going to be fine, but he couldn’t just lie when Dean asked:

“What the hell is going on up there?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Sam replied. “I’ll get you out of here. Can you walk?”

Dean closed his eyes for a second or two and then looked up at Sam again with a half-smile on his lips.

“I can try.”

Sam was going to pick him up like a child if it was necessary. He passed his arm around his shoulders and tried to ignore his grunts of pain as he lifted Dean up. He didn’t let go of his crowbar, though Sam wasn’t sure he had enough strength to lift it up, let alone swing it.

The situation upstairs had not improved, not at all. The flames were raging fiercer now and a dark thick smoke invaded every space. Sam and Dean both coughed as they tried to find their way out through. There were still growls and screams, howls of pain and anger piercing through the air. They couldn’t get next to the walls because most of them were on fire.

But after the initial panic in Sam’s mind subdued, he realized he could smell his way out. The clean, cold air of the night was like a soft stream, like crumbles he could follow if he focused enough on them. He held Dean’s body closing to him and half-dragged him, half-pushed him towards that clean air that he could feel, sometimes like barely a graze in his face, sometimes like a full on scent that promised freedom and security. He ignored how his face felt like it was about to burst, he ignored the burning in his lungs.

All he had to do was bring his brother to safety. They’d figure out the rest.

The figure that appeared through the smoke startled them enough that Dean actually raised the crowbar.

“It’s me!” Benny’s voice came. He sounded hoarse and tired, but he immediately moved to grab Dean’s other arm and alleviate Sam of his weight a little. “It’s okay. We’re getting out of here.”

“Cool…” Dean said, but whatever funny quip he was about to deliver got drowned out by a fit of dry cough that made the hair on the back of Sam’s face stand on end.

With Benny’s help, though, they moved faster. In a matter of moments, the current of cool air became stronger and a second later, they saw the patch of night sky appear over their heads, as the open doors of the warehouse spread in front of them.

At that point, Benny let go of Dean’s arm.

“You go. I have to find Meg.”

“No.” Dean weakly grabbed unto Benny’s sleeve. “You can’t, that’s…”

They didn’t see the vampire emerge through the smoke until it was practically on them. His face and hair were half burnt and his eyes were open in a maddened stare. He jumped at Benny from behind, locking him in a strong grip and dragging him down with him to the floor.

“Get out!” Benny shouted at them as he fell.

“No! Benny!” Dean screamed, but Sam didn’t hesitate. He practically lifted him over his shoulder, not caring about his protests and screams as he dragged him to the open air outside.

There were two or three burned bodies outside and two cars. Castiel was crouched next to one, with a glass bottle in one hand and a lighter in the other. His blue eyes grew wider with panic when he saw the brothers running towards them.

“Where’s Meg?” he shouted. “Where is she?”

“She was… she was inside,” Sam said, a knot of concern forming in his stomach. “I don’t know, I don’t…”

Someone else came running towards them and stumbled down to his knees. Benny. He crawled towards the car, coughing and puffing all the way. He tried to tell them something, but at the last second, he got interrupted by another fit of coughs.

Castiel was shaking his head, his desperation clearly growing in his face.

“I have to find her,” he said. “I have to…”

“Cas, no!” Sam grabbed him by the arm before he could take another step towards the inferno that the warehouse had become. “We barely got out of there! You’ll die!”

“I don’t care!” Castiel shouted in his face. “I can’t just leave her…!”

A loud explosion that reverberated inside of Sam’s skull with a vengeance punctuated his words. A wall had collapsed and the flames surrounded it in a moment’s notice.

If Meg wasn’t out by now, if she wasn’t…

Benny grabbed on to the booth of the car and painfully dragged himself up to his feet.

“Chin up, boys,” he whispered. “We’ve got company.”

Sam turned around. His sense of smell was disturbed by the ashes and the smoke, which is why he hadn’t sensed them approaching.

Three of Boris’ vampires approached them, showing their teeth and growling. They could probably take them, but there was only two of them. Dean was on the floor, slightly moaning in pain, Benny was barely staying on his feet and Castiel’s eyes were fixed on the fire, as if he would ran straight into it the second they would stop paying attention to.

And where the hell was Ruby?

Sam squared his shoulders. If it he was the only one who could fight to defend his family… his coven…

Castiel let out a strangled scream.

Everyone followed his gaze.

Meg had emerged from inside the burning warehouse. She was covered in soot and blood, her clothes were singed and torn, and she limped a little when she moved. On one hand, she still held her machete. On the other, she carried the head of the vampire with the half-burnt face, holding it by what was left of his long curly hair.

Sam recognized him finally when she lifted it up to the three unknown vampires. Then, defiantly, she threw the head of their leader at their feet.

He wasn’t sure what happened next. Maybe seeing confirmation that Boris was dead was enough to scare them away, maybe they realized that even if they surrendered Meg wasn’t going to let them live. Either way, they all turned their backs on them and fled through the night in the blink of an eye.

Castiel ran towards Meg and extended an arm right in time to catch her right before he stumbled.

“It’s okay,” he told her, holding her close. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Meg grabbed unto his arm while he helped her move towards the car again.

“Is everyone in one piece?” she asked, and punctuated her question with a cough.

“I’m fine,” Sam told her.

“Mostly,” Benny replied.

Dean just let another grunt of pain.

“Do you guys mind if I… pass out?” he asked, and proceeded to do exactly that against the car.

“Right,” Meg groaned. “So… I guess we’re taking him to the hospital now.”

* * *

Castiel had to walk Dean inside and tell everybody that his friend had been in a car accident. Sam and Benny wanted to come in with him, but Meg insisted they needed to stay back.

“Henriksen is going to find out about this sooner or later,” she said. “He’s still looking for Sam. And also, it’s almost dawn and we need to feed to recover.”

Castiel didn’t ask where they were going to feed. He knew for a fact that Meg had given all her blood bags to Sam so he could keep himself together, and it was clear that had not been enough. Now that the adrenaline rush from the fight was wearing off, Sam was looking pale and angry. He kept his hands balled up in fists over his knees and his eyes fixed on Dean as he leaned against Benny’s body.

“I’m fine,” Sam had said through gritted teeth, but it was clear that no one had believed him,

“Cas will call us if anything goes wrong,” Meg promised him. “This is the best we can do right now. We can regroup later and figure it out from there.”

There were many, many things to figure out. For starters, where the hell had Ruby gone and why, when Meg, her coven head, had ordered her to fight, she had abandoned them. Meg had killed Boris, which made her, according to Benny, technically the leader of the vampires that had survived the attack, but it was obvious they had no interest in joining her. Where would they go? To Luc? Or would they form a smaller coven they would have to deal with later?

None of those options sounded good.

Castiel was going slowly insane in the waiting room while they took Dean away to evaluate the damages. He checked his cellphone several times, but it was the middle of the morning. Usually Meg was sleeping at that time. He, too, felt exhausted, but his brain refused to go to sleep. As a result, all he could do was walk around and try to convince himself it was all going to be okay.

His power of self-persuasion were poor, to say the least.

Three hours and five cups of coffee later, Castiel was vibrating on an entire new plane when a doctor approached him and asked him if he was with Mr. Dean Winchester.

“He’s sustained several injuries, but no surgery will be necessary,” she explained as she accompanied Castiel to the room where they had put him. “Are you sure that it was a car accident? Because some of the bruises he has…”

“Do you have to report it to the police?” Castiel asked. He realized too late asking a question like that was incredibly suspicious. The doctor squinted her eyes at him.

“No, unless Mr. Winchester wants to press charges.”

“I’ll talk to him about it,” Castiel promised. “Thank you.”

The doctor threw another suspicious glance at him, but let him into the room without another word.

Dean was awake, with his eyes fixed on the TV showing a Looney Tunes cartoon. He chuckled softly every time one of the characters smashed into something or did something exaggerated. His hand and forehead were covered in bandages and Castiel presumed they were more under the sheets but he seemed to be enjoying himself despite it all.

“Ah, Cas! My best friend!” he exclaimed when Castiel approached him. “Fred, this is my good buddy, Cas!”

Fred was, apparently, the old white-haired man lying on the bed next to Dean’s. He seemed to be deeply asleep, with a cannula in his nose and a monitor marking the steady rhythm of his heart. There was a newspaper on his stomach, but it didn’t seem like he was waking up to read it any time soon. He didn’t open his eyes or acknowledge Dean was speaking to him in any way.

“I think he’s shy,” Dean whispered to Castiel.

“Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah, man, awesome!” Dean assured him, with another laugh. “They gave me all of the painkillers!”

That explained his giddy mood. Castiel pulled a chair and sat closer to him.

“What happened?”

“You mean with the vamps?” Dean asked, not even lowering his voice. “I don’t know. Benny and I were going to grab a bite. Get it? Grab a bite?” He laughed despite Castiel not really joining him. “Anyway, they ambushed us in an alleyway and they beat me up. And then in the warehouse, they beat me up some more. I got the impression they were really not happy with me for some reason.”

Castiel wondered if it was because Boris had thought Dean was Meg’s human boyfriend. It was a little insulting that he considered all humans looked more or less the same.

“What happened with you?” Dean shot back. “I mean, how were you there?”

“It was Meg’s idea,” Castiel explained. “She told me to follow them in another car and start the fire in the nest. However, she lied to Sam and Ruby and led them to believe I was staying behind at Meg’s house.”

“Why would she do that?”

“She was afraid Boris would find out about her strategy from Sam’s thoughts. Since he hasn’t been a vampire that long, he doesn’t yet know how to conceal his thoughts from others.”

“That must suck, right?” Dean asked. “Not being able to be alone with your thoughts. Then again, they heal faster when someone kicks their ass.”

Castiel couldn’t really argue with that.

“So I killed the sentinels in the entry…”

“Wait, how did you do that?”

“I threw Molotov cocktails at them.”

He wasn’t sure how or why Dean found that so funny, but he burst out laughing so hard that Fred woke up and glared at him from the other bed.

“Would you keep it down?” he snapped.

“Sorry, Fred,” Dean said, suffocating his laughter.

Fred grumbled something else, shifted a little in the bed and promptly fell asleep. He didn’t even care that his newspaper flopped down to the floor.

“I feel like I shouldn’t have laughed about that,” Dean said, cringing after a moment. “Maybe it’s the painkillers, but I am… finding it hard to be shocked by the fact you straight up killed someone.”

“It wasn’t someone. It was vampires.”

“Aren’t you dating one?”

“It’s not the same,” Castiel argued. He wished they could have this conversation when his brains didn’t feel like they’d been fried out of pure exhaustion. “I don’t know how to explain it, just… they weren’t Meg’s people. They weren’t our people.”

Dean blinked at him, as if he was trying to process those words.

“Are you part of her… what’s it called again?”

“A coven,” Castiel repeated. He reflected about it for a second. “I don’t know.”

“Huh.” Dean stared at the TV, but it was like he wasn’t really seeing it. “Am I?”

“Even if you weren’t, Sam would’ve fought to get you back.” Castiel stayed quiet for a second before he asked. “And… Benny, I think, would have too. What are you…? I hope you don’t mind me asking, but you said he’d bitten you?”

“Yeah… it’s a long story,” Dean said, and the grimace in his face indicated he wasn’t about to elaborate on it. “I just… I feel like we should be more freaked out about this. Like, I was freaked out for like ten minutes and now I’m not anymore. Oh, my brother’s a vampire, but he’s a good one? Oh, there are other evil vampires trying to kill him? Oh, shit, I’ve been kidnapped by said vampires, well, tough shit. I’m just going with it at this point.”

“I think that might be the trauma setting in.”

“Do vampires have therapists?”

“I don’t know, but perhaps they should,” Castiel replied, with a shrug. “Maybe I can change my major and start a practice. Though I don’t know how happy Meg would be with random vampires showing up at her place.”

He expected Dean to laugh again, mostly because this time he was actually joking, but his friend just stared at him in stunned silence.

“You’re… I mean, I guess you burning a building and killing vampires for her should have clued me in on it, but I still can’t wrap around my head that you’re so serious about her.”

Castiel reflected upon that.

“It might be a strange combination of how she perceives death and how close we’ve been to it in the past few days. Meg is immortal, so she wastes no time in things she doesn’t want. She wants me and waited around for me to come around reciprocating those feelings. I finally did when I realized that her being a vampire was no guarantee that I wouldn’t lose her.”

“So you’re going to turn into a vampire one day?” Dean asked. “Like, willingly?”

“That’s the plan. If we survive the constant assaults we’re receiving in the present, that is.”

Dean went quiet. He fidgeted with his good hand for a while, tapping his fingers against his leg.

“So first Sam, and then you.”

“If everything goes right, I’m not going to change for a few years,” Castiel tried to say.

“But you are going to change,” Dean pointed out. “And I’m… not. I’m going to grow old without you and without my brother, and you’re both going to live in that big ass house with Meg and Benny and… that other bitch that turned Sam.”

Castiel took the chance to change the topic. If only because the road Dean’s thoughts had taken was extremely bleak.

“I don’t know about Ruby. She ran out of the warehouse right after I threw the first Molotov. I figured the others would be right behind her, but she didn’t even look back as she disappeared in the distance.”

“So she jumped ship before the fight even started.”

“It would appear so.”

Dean bit the inside of his cheek.

“Doesn’t that seem weird to you?”

“Extremely,” Castiel agreed. “But I can’t worry about her too much. We survived. We rescued you. Boris’ coven won’t be an issue anymore. I count today as a win.”

Dean laid back down on his pillows. Castiel didn’t know if it was because of their conversation or because the effect of the painkillers had worn off, but he seemed a lot less animated than he had before.

“I wish I could do that, too.”

“Dean…”

“I’m kind of tired, Cas,” he cut him off. “Do you mind if I just…?”

“Yes, of course,” Castiel said. “I’ll leave you to rest.”

“Thanks,” Dean mumbled. He shifted a little, turning his gaze away.

It hurt a little. But Castiel couldn’t think of anything to say that would make him feel better after the horrible day they’d had. He stood up to leave, but stopped long enough to pick up Fred newspaper’s…

The news on the front page was about a double murder. A couple had been stopped by the road and had their throats slashed.

Castiel eyed Fred, but the old man was fast asleep. He grabbed the newspaper and stepped out of the room with it. He found a quiet spot in the hospital’s cafeteria, right next to a plug so he could charge his phone, and read the article closely.

The couple had been found dead on the road next to their car. There was so little blood in the crime scene that police suspected they had been killed elsewhere and then dumped there. The article briefly mentioned that in the last week alone there had been five dead bodies with the same characteristic and one person (Sam Winchester, twenty-years-old, college student, boyfriend of one of the victims) was still missing. The police _weren’t_ talking about a serial killer, not yet at least, but it was too much coincidence that five people had been killed with the exact M.O., wasn’t it?

No, it wasn’t. Meg had told him that Luc was careful, that he always disposed of the bodies of his victims and so, apparently, did Boris. The fact he’d left these out in the open for anyone to find… well, it was a message-It had to be.

He was letting Meg know that he was still there. That he wasn’t going to just stop.

Castiel really wished they’d had more time to enjoy their victory, but it seemed like Luc wasn’t going to let up.

Meg picked up the phone after one ring.

“Cas, is everything okay?”

“Yes, everything’s fine. Dean is awake and they say he'll be fine.”

“Good. I’ll transfer money to his bank account so he can pay the bills for all of this,” she said. “What about you, are you okay?”

“I’m… fine, but Meg, I just read something that troubles me greatly.”

Meg listened to him attentively and when he was done speaking, she sighed.

“Yeah… things aren’t really all that great on this end, either.”

“What do you mean? What happened?”

“When we got here, someone had vandalized the house. They jumped the gate, broke some windows, broke some furniture, slashed some mattresses. I’m checking the cameras, but I have a good idea of who it was.”

“Meg…” Castiel said, scared. “Are you safe there?”

“I’m as safe as I can be. That’s not really the issue.”

“How can you say that? They broke into your home…!”

“Cas, they weren’t looking for me,” she interrupted him. “They were looking for you.”

The weight of her words sent a shiver down Castiel’s spine.

“What do you mean? I’m just…”

“Luc hates you,” she pointed out. “He thinks that if it wasn’t for you, I would go back to him instead of making my own coven. And maybe he’s right, I don’t know.”

“But how did he know where…?” Castiel started asking, before the obvious answer came to him. “Ruby.”

“It would seem like, yes.” Meg sighed. She didn’t sound surprised at all. “I made her believe that you’d be home alone, but when they got here, you weren’t. So they took it out on our bed.”

There was such softness in her voice when she said the last words; they sounded so natural. ‘Our bed’. Like Castiel had already moved in, like her home was his already.

Was it stupid to be feeling all warm and fuzzy over that when there were so many dangers still lurking?

“Listen, stay with Dean,” Meg told him. “Watch over him. We’ll pick you up as soon as the sun goes down and we’ll figure it out from there, okay?”

“That sounds like a plan.”

There was a pause.

“I… I love you.”

Castiel shuddered again. He knew it, of course. She wouldn’t have been doing all of this for him if she didn’t. But it was just a completely different thing to hear it said out loud.

“I love you, too,” he replied.

“This is going to pass, Castiel,” she promised him. “It’s going to be over soon and then we can travel somewhere. How do you feel about England? I know you love all those old, dead writers…”

“I have to go back to classes, Meg,” he pointed out. It sounded so stupidly mundane, but he knew precisely why he needed to say it. He needed to believe there would be some semblance of normality left afterwards. “But afterwards, maybe we can. Have you ever been on a plane before?”

“Actually, no, I’ve never got around getting into one of those,” she admitted and laughed. “It’ll be a new experience, and I don’t get those very often.”

He was so much calmer after the call ended. Yes, thinks were bleak right now, but they would be alright. They would be just fine. They’ll make sure of it.

* * *

Dean woke up what felt like several hours later. The painkillers had definitely worn off, because there was a dull ache in his bones and in his head, all the way to his damn fingernails. He was thirsty and hungry and his bladder felt like it was about to explode. He sighed and slowly pushed the sheets aside, grabbed unto his IV drip and miserably made his way to the bathroom.

He hated hospitals. The last time he’d been in one had been after his dad had the stroke that’d killed him. He’d actually collapsed at the workshop, but he was still alive when the ambulance arrived. And then when they’d got to the hospital…

Better not to think about it.

He finished washing his hands and stared at his face in the mirror. He had a cut on his lip and a bruise under his eye. His scruff was rapidly becoming an outright beard and his hair looked messy as all hell. Damn, he needed a shower. Or a sexy nurse to give him a sponge bath, he wasn’t picky.

He dragged himself back to the room. Fred was still sleeping peacefully (did this man ever do anything else? Was he practicing for when he finally died?) and the TV was still running cartoons no one watched anymore. He got back on the bed and was about to press the buzz to call for a nurse to give him more pills when he heard a commotion outside of his room.

“You can’t just come in here like that!”

“And you can’t stop me from doing it. This is an official investigation and your friend is a key witness.”

“He has been in a horrible accident and he is recovering…”

“Yes, an accident,” the second voice said, dripping with sarcasm. “A lot seems to have happened to Mr. Winchester since his brother’s disappearance, has it not?”

He recognized it, finally. It was Detective Henriksen’s voice. Man, did that guy ever take a break? How did he even know that Dean was in that hospital? There was no point in asking, though, because Henriksen would just say that was part of police official’s business and blah, blah, blah…

“I don’t like your tone,” Castiel stated.

“And I don’t like the fact that you’re not letting me do my job,” the detective shot back. “Now, move before I charge you with obstruction of justice.”

Dean didn’t know if he could do that or not and Sam wasn’t around to ask him.

“I’m going to get a doctor to see if that’s appropriate,” Castiel threatened.

“You go ahead and do that, if it makes you feel better.”

The door flung open and Detective Henriksen marched in. Dean looked like hell, but Henriksen wasn’t in much better condition. He also had a several days-old beard shadowing his face and his suit was a mess of creases and stains, like he had slept on it for the past three or four days.

“Mr. Winchester.”

“Detective,” Dean replied, trying to keep his face as expressionless as possible.

“Heard you were in some sort of accident?”

“I was,” Dean said, not even bothering to ask how he’d found out about that. “It’s so kind of you to come visit me.”

He added a little beam at the end, because why the hell not? After what Boris’ vampires had done to him, he wasn’t scared of another human anymore.

“What happened?”

“You know what, the details are kind of fuzzy.” Dean shrugged. “Must be the head trauma I endured.”

Henriksen clenched his jaw and paced around the room. He might have thought the way he checked the door to see if Castiel was coming back was slick, but it really wasn’t.

“Mr. Winchester, I know you have no reason to believe this, but I am only trying to help,” he said, in the end. “If you know anything, anything at all, that could help me with the investigation…”

Dean stared at him. His unkempt appearance, the despair in his voice. Everything indicated the man was unravelling and despite how much he was still mad at him for accusing Sam of murder... well, he felt a little bad for him. It couldn’t be easy to be trying to understand something that was just beyond any human comprehension. No matter how much Henriksen tried, some of these murders were just not going to be solved.

And Dean supposed he could tell him the truth, about the vampires, about the war between covens, about what had happened to Sam. But then again, there was no way Henriksen was going to believe him and even if he did, Dean was no snitch.

Castiel hadn’t said it outright, but Dean suspected he had been right. They were part of the coven, even if they weren’t vampires. And he just couldn’t give them away like that.

He was still sincere when he said:

“I wish I could help, detective.”

Henriksen leaned down against the wall and for a moment, Dean could see through that: his exhaustion, his anguish.

“The FBI is getting involved,” Henriksen informed him. “In your brother’s case and… others that might be related to it.”

“Maybe that’s for the best,” Dean said. “Maybe more eyes are exactly what you need to find Sam.”

Henriksen stared at him. The door burst open then and just as he’d said, Castiel walked in along with a doctor.

“Detective, can I ask you to please not harass my patients?” the doctor said, in a whisper, shooting a glance at Fred’s still sleeping form. “Mr. Winchester needs to rest and so does Mr. Jones.”

Mr. Jones seemed to have done nothing but rest since Dean had been put in that room, but he didn’t point it out.

Henriksen kept looking at Dean a little longer, like the power of his stare alone would be enough to make him budge and confess.

“Detective!” the doctor urged him.

“Yeah, okay,” Henriksen replied. “I’m just leaving.”

He turned around and did exactly that.

“I’m going to escort him to the exit,” the doctor decided.

Castiel approached Dean’s bed and lowered his voice to ask:

“What did he want?”

“To cause us some grief, I guess,” Dean groaned. He kicked the sheets aside. “Get me my clothes, will you? We have to get my car back and tell the others.”


	13. A Night For Us

Sam and Benny threw the last of the broken furniture on the pile they had been gathering in the garden. The wood rattle when it hit the rest, all broken and splintered.

“Alright,” Benny said, stretching his arms above his head. “I think that was the last of it.”

“You really didn’t have to do that,” Meg said. “I could have done it.”

She had been sitting in the nearest stone bench, looking at them with her arms crossed over her chest and mainly given them indications on what to do with all her broken stuff. Sam knew she was as strong as the two of them, if not stronger, but she hadn’t bothered carrying any of the debris outside with them.

“It was no issue, sistah’,” Benny replied. “I needed the exercise.”

Sam appreciated it too. He was feeling good, despite the hellish day they’d had.

He figured the blood of the delivery girl that ran through his veins now had something to do with it.

He’d refused to do it at first.

“What if I hurt him?” Sam had asked when Meg and Benny exposed their plan to him. “What if I take more than he can handle? What if I kill him?”

“That’s what we’re here for,” Benny had told him. “We’ll tell you when to stop. Or make you stop if you don’t think you can do it?”

“Besides, you need to start practicing,” Meg added. “I admire the restraint you showed so far. I killed no less than four maids in my first week as a vampire. But eventually, you’re going to have to learn what your limits are.”

“We’ll do it first so you’ll know how to,” Benny had offered.

They’d called a pizza place. The short Asian guy that showed up in a beat-up Vespa stared up at the house with his mouth hanging open when they’d invited him to come in with the excuse to look for the money.

“This place is huge!” he’d said. “Do you guys are like, going to have a party or something.”

“Or something,” Meg had said, as she left the pizza on the coffee table. “Now, look at me, please.”

“I…” the guy said, but then he’d stared into Meg’s eyes and his impressed expression changed into one that was almost devoid of any emotion. “Yes.”

“We can hypnotize people?” Sam had asked.

“ _Meg_ can hypnotize people,” Benny had explained, but offered no insight into why she could and they couldn’t.

“Normally is easier if they’re half-asleep, intoxicated or… otherwise distracted,” she’d said, as she ran her fingers down the delivery boy’s cheek and neck. “Sit down. What’s your name, dear?”

“Kevin,” the delivery boy said, with a dumb beam on his face. “You’re very pretty.”

“Why, thank you. Now, my friend Sam here is very hungry and he needs to have a snack. Would you be willing to help?”

“Yes, of course!” Kevin said, still blinking at her. “Anything you need.”

Meg had turned to Sam and gestured for him to come closer, but Sam hesitated.

He could smell the boy, the sweet, metallic scent of his blood floating in the air, hear his rhythmic, calm heartbeat. He could sense his confusion, like he was aware something very weird was going on there, but he couldn’t quite put his fingers on what he was or maybe he didn’t care to through the fog that Meg had let loose in his brain.

It was like every inch of Sam’s body was screaming for him. His mouth was watering and his eyes were fixed on the boy’s neck, on the big vein pulsing his blood right there.

He’d clenched his fists.

“No. I can’t do it.”

“Sam…”

“He’s so… tiny,” Sam had argued, and it was true. He dwarfed the kid by almost a foot, and he looked fragile enough that Sam could easily break his neck, even if he was being as careful as he could. “I can’t do it.”

Meg and Benny had exchanged a look, so fast Sam couldn’t pick up what they were thinking.

“Alright, then,” Meg had said. She’d stretched her leg over Kevin’s knee and settled herself in his lap. “But you’re gonna have to eat eventually.”

“What are you doing…?” Kevin had mumbled, but Meg had shut him up with a brief kiss before she hid her face in his neck. Kevin had moaned softly and his body had gone stiff, but after a few seconds, his eyes had fluttered close and he’d relaxed under her ministrations.

It was nothing like the violence he’d witnessed with Luc and Jessica, nothing like what he’d done with Andy. It was soft and almost loving, delicate. Meg kept caressing the boy’s cheek, ruffling his hair, petting his chest, almost like those gestures were meant to distract him from what was going on.

After a few minutes, Meg had moved away, quickly licking at her lips to catch a drop of blood that had almost slipped out.

“Thank you, handsome,” she’d told him, with a last pat on his cheek.

Kevin had blinked at her, like he had no idea what she was thanking him for.

“You’re… you’re welcome, miss.”

She’d placed a hundred dollar bill in his pocket as a tip and sent him off his way. Sam had watched walk down to his Vespa on unstable legs and walk away with his hands on the bike, like he didn’t trust himself enough to ride it just yet.

He’d also refused to drink from the second delivery man. Meg had hypnotized him too and Benny had held him close, also petting him and whispering softly to him as he nuzzled his neck.

He didn’t spill a drop.

“Next one is the last one,” Meg had warned him as the second boy waddled out of the house and towards his car. “You have to drink, Sammy. Dean and Castiel are going to come back from the hospital later and you need to be able to be around them.”

The mention of his brother’s name was what finally prompted him to accept.

The third pizza delivery was made by a woman. She was tall, with high cheekbones and long black hair under her cap with the logo of her workplace.

“Hello,” she’d said, smiling when they opened the door for her. “Sorry about the delay. I had a hard time finding the house.”

“Happens a lot. Come on in.”

Benny and Sam had stayed back as Meg did her mental trick with them. The girl had blinked at her confused as she sat down on the couch where Kevin and the other delivery man had been just an hour before.

“I feel… I’m sorry, I’m a little tired all the sudden.”

“That’s alright, Sara,” Meg had told her. Sam didn’t think she’d told them her name out loud. “Do you want to take a nap?”

“I have other houses…”

“I really think you should take a nap,” Meg had said, leaning over so Sara couldn’t escape her gaze. “Now.”

Sara’s eyes had fluttered close and her head hung back and in a few seconds longer, her chest was raising and falling, softly.

“Figured this would be easier for you,” Meg had said as she signaled for Sam to come closer. “Come on.”

Sam had sat next to Sara, nervous. The thirst was growing in the back of his throat again, and God, she smelled so good. The soap of her clean clothes, the flowery scent of her shampoo and, of course, her blood. Her head was to the side, revealing the white, immaculate skin of her neck.

It was maddening.

Sam moved his tongue across his spreading fangs. His hands trembled as he reached out for her, but even though every inch of himself wanted to take her right then, to bleed her dry until she was part of him again, he stopped himself.

“I… you guys will stop me, right?” he’d asked, looking up at them. “If I go too far…”

“We’re right here,” Benny had assured him. “We’ll watch out for her.”

“If you don’t trust our good intentions, trust we don’t want another body dropping on us right now,” Meg had pointed out.

That was a very cynical way of putting it, but for some reason, it’d made Sam feel a little better. He’d moved closer to Sara on the couch, so close to her neck the only thing that he could smell right now was her blood, so sweet…

He’d started with a kiss, almost like he would a lover. Her warm, graceful body reminded her of Jess, all of the sudden, because he would never had dared to do something this… intimate with anyone else. The memory was almost enough to override his thirst, but he was dying, it felt like he would die if he didn’t take her right then and there.

He’d found the vein almost on instinct and the second his teeth pierced through it, the blood had flooded his mouth, like velvet on his tongue. It was a like a switch flipped on his brain and suddenly he’d stopped caring. His grief, his guilt, his worries, it all paled compared to his desire to have more, more of that elixir that flowed to his throat. He could feel her heart beating faster, like she knew there was something wrong, but she couldn’t wake up, she couldn’t fight it, so he’d just held her tight and squeezed her between his arms, lapping and swallowing as his senses sharpened and urged him to go further and further…

Strong hands grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him back, separating his mouth from the neck on his victim.

He growled in pure rage, but the hands were already dragging him away, and another person was taking the girl away and no, they couldn’t do that, she was hers! She was his prey, they had no right to…

A hand had slapped him across the face, hard, and the pain sent a shockwave through him. He’d blinked and became suddenly aware that Benny was pulling him away towards the stairs.

“Come on. You’ve had enough,” he’d said.

Sam had completely lost the notion of time and he hadn’t even tried counting how many gulps of Sara’s blood he’d taken. He felt lightheaded, shaky, like right after coming down of a rollercoaster. He was hyperaware of everything: Benny’s arm around his shoulder, the color of the carpet that covered the steps, the smell of blood still floating in the air. He’d dared to look over his shoulder to see Sara passed out on the couch, a red stream of blood gushing out of her neck as Meg leaned over her and checked the pulse on her wrist.

Had he killed her?

The commotion had almost knocked him down and the only reason he didn’t collapse was because Benny had held him and urged to keep on walking until they found a bathroom. Benny had sat him down on the toilet and given him an onceover.

“You’re going to need a new shirt,” he’d determined. “Wait here.”

He’d locked the door in his wake. Probably because he couldn’t trust Sam wouldn’t break out of the bathroom and attack Sara again. Sam had looked down at himself and found out, horrified, that his clothes and fingertips had big red stains on them. He’d stood up to look at himself in the mirror. His pupils were blown open so wide his eyes looked almost entirely black.

Worse of all, he was sporting a boner.

He’d opened the cold water and desperately rubbed his face and neck and then found a glass and dunk even more over his head. It wasn’t enough. He’d opened the shower and sat under the stream, letting it wash over him as he closed his eyes and tried to will his heart to stop pounding, his body to settle down again.

It was no use. All he could think about was how amazing it had felt to hold that girl against him, how great and satisfying and warm it was…

By the time Benny walked back in with a clean change of clothes, Sam was a dripping wet and just as agitated as before.

“She was alive,” he’d told her, because he knew that was what Sam was most worried about. “Meg managed to convince her she’d passed out and cut her neck. She urged her to go to the hospital to have it checked out. She should be fine.”

Sam had breathed out slowly, still tense and shaking.

“I’m sorry,” he’d mumbled.

“It’s a learning curve,” Benny had replied. He’d closed the shower and offered him his hand to stand up. “But this is why you shouldn’t let too much time pass between meals. The thirstier you are, the harder it is to control what you’re doing.”

That made sense, but it didn’t mean that Sam was going to hate himself any less if he ended up hurting someone despite his best efforts.

Benny had handed him the clothes and discreetly turned around while Sam changed. It was hard to move when he was still…

“Is it… is it normal to…?”

“Oh, yeah, that happens all the time,” Benny had answered without Sam having to clarify any further. He figured it must have been noticeable through his soaked clothes. “It’s nothing to be ashamed about. Drinking blood is… exhilarating. Your body just reacts accordingly.”

“How do you… deal with that?”

“Usually, by finding a willing partner and making the most of it.”

That had opened the door for a host of other questions that Sam had been holding back all that time.

“Like my brother?”

Benny had slowly turned to look at him over his shoulder. Sam had pulled from the helm of the shirt that was too short and a little too tight for him, but he wasn’t going to complain about it.

“I… Dean thinks I don’t know, but I mean… I’ve been looking up to him my entire life. I know everything about him.”

There was also that intuition-psychic link he had now, but he’d figured Benny didn’t need him to mention that.

“Oh. Well.” Benny looked very uncomfortable, but he’d made the effort to still hold Sam’s gaze as he’d spoken. “I do care about your brother a lot. It’s not something I’d planned. In fact, I hadn’t planned on seeing him again after… the first night we met.”

“It’s a small world.”

“It happens to be, yes.”

Sam had run his fingers through his wet locks, thinking about how to continue this conversation.

“And does he…?”

“He’s been too busy worrying about you for us to have any conversation regarding how we feel about each other,” Benny had answered. “If he happens to feel anything for me at all and I’m not just a stupid hopeless romantic, I mean.”

“Yeah, that makes sense.”

Benny had stepped outside to let him waddle out of the room, with his shoes on his hands.

“I think it would be great if he did feel something for you, though,” Sam had added. “It would give him a reason to want to…”

He’d trailed off. That was a sudden dark thought and he wasn’t sure where it’d come from. He didn’t have to finish it for Benny to understand what he meant and stare at him with eyebrows raised.

“Would you want him to become like us?”

“No… yes. I don’t… I don’t know,” Sam had ended up admitting. He leaned back against the wall. “I would never do anything like what Ruby did to me.”

“Of course not.” Benny had nodded. “But?”

Sam had thought about it for a moment, trying to find the right words.

“I am going to live forever,” he’d pointed out. “It’s overwhelming to think and I don’t know if I want to do this without my brother. I already lost Jess and when they hurt Dean so badly…”

“You’re scared,” Benny had understood. “It’s alright to be. But whatever happens, you need to remember that you’re not going to be alone. Meg will be here, and so will I.”

“And Cas,” Sam had pointed out.

“That goes without saying.”

“Boys?” Meg had called them up from downstairs. “I’m gonna start cleaning up. You’re helping or what?”

“I’m going,” Benny had answered. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

Sam had decided to go. The exercise of getting the broken furniture out of the house had distracted him from his own thoughts, and helped him pass the time until they heard the unmistakable engine roar of Dean’s Impala.

“They’re lucky it didn’t get towed,” Meg commented, standing up from the bench to open the gate for them.

The black car came rolling down her yard, shining black under the sunset. Sam took a deep breath and straightened his back.

Cas came out of the passenger seat first and broke into a mild sprint towards Meg, who immediately extended her arms towards him and engulfed him in a tight embrace. Sam looked away quickly. It was just not right and every time they did something like that, he was reminded once again or what it’d felt like to hold Jessica so tight she complained about him breaking her bones.

He should have given her more hugs like that.

He hadn’t even finished forming that thought when his eyes fell on Dean. He was still standing near the car’s open door, like he had just come there to drop Cas off and he was debating getting inside the Impala again and driving away. Sam wouldn’t blame him. In the last few days, he had been attacked, bitten, kidnapped and assaulted. If he wanted to go and have nothing to do with the coven again, it would break Sam’s heart, but he wouldn’t blame him.

He took a step towards him, opening his mouth to tell him exactly that.

“Dean…”

Dean slammed the car’s door closed and walked up to Sam. In a second, he had his arms around him and was pulling him in for a strong, long hug, like he was never planning on letting Sam go again.

Sam closed his eyes. He barely managed to contain a cry of relief.

After a while, Dean pulled back and scanned his face.

“You look good, little brother,” he commented, with a half-smile.

“Yeah, you look… not so hot,” Sam said, grimacing at the state of his face.

“Well, you wouldn’t either if you… do you even bruise, now?”

“Not easily,” Benny replied.

Meg burst into laughter like it was the most hilarious joke she’d heard.

“Come on, guys,” she said, as Cas put an arm around her shoulders. “We got some food for you.”

“Oh, hell yes, pizza!” Dean exclaimed, when he saw the boxes piled up in the kitchen. Then, he frowned. “You do know you could have asked for three pizzas from the same place, right?”

Sam cringed at the mention, but Meg just grinned at Dean.

“It must have slipped my mind.”

“Can I… can I eat now?” Sam asked while Castiel and Dean placed the pieces of reheated pizza on their plates.

Meg and Benny exchanged a look.

“I mean, you can try, but it’s going to make you sick,” Benny explained.

“Well, that’s not a great loss for him,” Dean said, as he stuffed his face with pizza. “When he was human, all he was eating was rabbit food. So I guess there’s a silver lining in all of this after all.”

“Thank you, Dean,” Sam said, annoyed. But he realized exactly what he was trying to do: he was teasing him, in his big brother way, to make light of the situation in a way neither Meg nor Benny could.

“Yeah, it’s too bad,” Meg said, with a shrug. “But you know what you can have a little of?”

She opened the cabinet and proudly brought up a big bottle of Bourbon.

“Now you’re talking!” Benny said as he got the glasses for it out. In just a few seconds, everyone had one in their hand and Meg was filling it up to the brim.

Sam sniffed his. It was acrid and strong, and it burned on his tongue in a way nothing had done since the first time he’d had a drink. Castiel patted him on the shoulder until he stopped coughing, while Dean openly laughed at him.

“Oh, man, this… this is gonna take some getting used to.”

“You don’t say,” Sam mumbled in a hoarse voice. He coughed some more and pushed his glass away. “I have a question.”

“Sure, ask away.”

“What are we going to do about Luc?”

He immediately realized he should’ve waited for at least another while before he brought that up, because an awkward silence fell on top of all of them. Slowly, all of them turned their attention towards Meg.

She held her glass to her lips and tasted the whiskey, licking her lips the same way she’d had after drinking from the pizza delivery boy.

“Nothing tonight,” she said in the end.

“Nothing?”

“Oh, we are going to go after them in time,” she replied. “And we are going to kill them, because clearly we can’t just scare him into leaving our city. But not tonight.”

“But what about the others? The vampire’s form Boris’ coven that escaped?” Sam said. “You mentioned that they might go to him.”

“The weakest ones might, yes. They’re going to find the biggest bully in the playground and throw their lot in with him. But the smart ones might leave and well, they aren’t our problem anymore.”

“They’re going to leave to kill people,” Dean pointed out. There was a bitterness in his voice Sam hadn’t expected, but he guessed it made sense.

“Somewhere else. Where they won’t be our problem,” Meg repeated, raising her voice just slightly, like a teacher that didn’t like her authority questioned. “Honestly, boys, this past few days had been more action than I have seen in decades and I need a break. If it was up to me, I wouldn’t leave this house for the next couple of years, but since that’s not possible, I’ll settle for just one quiet night with my coven.”

Sam wanted to protest that. He couldn’t rest, he couldn’t settle until Jessica’s murder had what was coming to him.

“We have time, Sam,” Meg told him before he could. “I’m not concerned about human law enforcement, other than them being a nuisance, and with Boris gone, we can focus on Luc.”

“I got Ruby’s scent memorized,” Benny said. “Doesn’t matter where that bitch goes, we’ll find her.”

Sam wasn’t entirely happy with that, but he leaned back on his chair. Meg was right. It had been one hell of a week and he needed some rest. He grabbed his glass again, poured the whiskey down his throat and ignored the way it burned in his chest as it went down. He wasn’t sure he could get drunk from it and it definitely didn’t give him the same lightheaded ecstasy than blood, but it wasn’t half bad.

“Alright,” he accepted in the end. “So… what are we doing tonight?”

Meg filled her glass again and held it up for a few second, pensively.

“How about a bonfire? We already have a pile of useless wood laying around in the front yard.”

“Doesn’t fire kill vampires?” Dean asked, frowning. He was already opening the pizza box when Castiel hadn’t even finished his second slice.

“I mean, do you think you would fare any better if your clothes caught fire?” Meg shot back.

Dean chewed on his pizza for a few seconds.

“Touché,” he admitted.

The smell of gasoline made Sam sneeze, but it dissipated in the air after a few seconds. The broken furniture looked shiny and wet under the starlight. Castiel held a box of matches in his hand and looked around before he lit one.

“Any words?”

“What do you want us to say?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Just… it is so strange to be here with all of you, but so unique. I don’t know if myself and Dean can be considered part of the coven, but even if we aren’t, I feel like we’ve become a family through the harrowing experiences we’ve gone through. Whatever come our way, we’re going to face it together.”

They all stood in solemn silence, taking it in. Meg was the first one to break and as always, she did it with a laugh.

“I think those might just be the right words, love.”

Castiel smiled at her and threw the match at the pile of broken furniture. It caught fire in a moment. Sam took a step closer, staring at the golden and orange light and letting it warm his skin. His hands were itching and his heart jumped out of his chest, a panic settling in his stomach and telling him to run away from the fire, that he could die if it touched him. It was the same panic that had invaded him back at the warehouse, but just like then he’d overcome it out of concern for Dean, now he was able to ignore it because he was surrounded by the people he knew would take care of him.

Meg brought another bottle of whiskey that she passed around while laughing and hanging unto Castiel’s neck and Benny asked Dean to put on some music from his car.

“Oh, I have the perfect cassette for this!”

“Cassette? Do people still use those?”

“He does!” Sam said and chuckled as well.

“They still work just fine, thank you very much!” Dean shouted back from inside his car.

The hard beating of drums and the melody of electric guitars invaded the air, and when Meg handed him the bottle, Sam gulped down several shots from it. It didn’t calm his thirst, but it warmed him up inside and made his head feel lighter.

He didn’t intend to do anything in particular when he took a step to the right, but apparently being a vampire meant he could still get drunk, because he ended up crashing against Cas. His friend held him up and asked him if he was okay, and Sam didn’t know how to answer to that.

Because since he had seen Luc kill Jessica… no, since before that, since he had woken up in that dusty, abandoned house where they had taken him and the love of his life, nothing had been okay. Nothing felt like it would be okay again.

But as he put an arm around Castiel’s shoulder and another around Meg’s, as he watched how Benny leaned against the Impala and said something that made Dean smile and look at his shoes, he realized that Meg had been right. They all needed this.

Because it was the first time he could say without a shadow of a doubt:

“Yes. I’m fine.”


	14. Chapter 14

The bonfire burned for hours. Every time it seemed like the flames had dimmed, they threw something on it (another piece of wood, more gasoline, some whiskey) and stoked it again. Dean played his entire classic rock collection for them and when it was done, he played it again. Castiel drunk each time the whiskey bottle found its way into his hand, until he could literally not stand anymore and all he could was lay down on the soft grass, watching at the stars.

Or watching Meg as she took off her jacket first and then her shoes and danced with the brothers and with Benny, contorting her body and casting strange shadows on the ground. At some point, Sam had been sitting next to Cas and he’d asked if he didn’t mind.

“Of course not. I enjoy your company immensely, Sam.”

“Thanks, but I don’t mean that,” Sam said with a chuckle. “I mean, that.”

Castiel followed the direction his finger pointed at. Meg was dancing, sandwiched between Dean and Benny. She had an arm around Dean’s neck while she rubbed her back and ass against Benny. Benny had his hands on her hips, moving along with the rhythm she marked, with a lot more grace than Dean. Castiel deduced he must have been as drunk as he was, if not more, so it seemed like a small miracle that he was still standing, let alone attempting to dance with Castiel’s girlfriend.

“Oh.” Castiel rubbed his eyes. “Why would I mind?”

“I mean… it’s just…” Sam started but went quiet, like he was suddenly realizing that his question made no sense.

Castiel felt a little bad for him and tried to explain any further:

“I know Benny isn’t attracted to her, and your brother… we’re friends and he… didn’t exactly… like Meg?” he said, trying to find the words exactly. “It might not have been a wise idea to introduce him to her while he was worried sick about your disappearance. That might have colored his perception of her.”

“Yeah. I’m sure it was that.”

Castiel couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not, so he continued:

“In any case, even if they were attracted to Meg, it wouldn’t make any difference.”

“Why is that?”

Meg opened her eyes and directed her gaze exactly to where they were sitting. A smirk bloomed in her full lips and Castiel found himself smiling right back at her. He didn’t know if she could hear him at that distance and over the blasting music, but he hoped she did:

“Because I know she loves me.”

And maybe she did hear him, because her smile grew wider. She let go of Dean and gently removed Benny’s hands from her hips.

“Alright, boys, this was fun,” she said. “But it’s getting late.”

“What are you… what are you talking about?” Dean slurred, still trying to hold on to her. “Night’s young.”

“Yeah, not really,” Meg laughed, pointing at the sky.

It was a true. A faint, pink line had appeared in the horizon, announcing the dawn. The bonfire had died down to the point it was only a few, weak flames now that could be easily douse with a bucket of water, as Benny promptly did.

“I think it’s time we all went to bed,” he commented.

“Okay, let me… turn off the…” Dean mumbled, and fell down. Or he would have, if Benny hadn’t been there to catch him before he hit the ground.

“I got you, handsome, I got you.”

Sam got up to turn off the music for him and grabbed Dean’s arm so between him and Benny they could half drag him, half help him walk towards the house.

“I’m fine,” Dean protested all the way there, while Sam and Benny laughed at him. “I’m… kinda hungry. Are you guys hungry? Do you get hungry? I could definitely eat…”

Meg grabbed her shoes and jacket from where she’d carelessly abandoned them and walked towards Castiel. The yard combed and spun a little when she offered him her hand to stand up, so he had to lean on her. He knew she was strong enough to hold him, so he placed his hands on her back and pulled her in for the tightest hug he could give her.

In turn, she put a hand on her cheek and lowered his face to her lips. She tasted like whiskey and blood.

“Did you have fun, darling?”

“It was… it was wonderful. Just to get to spend time with everybody…”

Meg kissed him again.

“And how about spending some time with just me now?”

The way she asked it was full of promise. Castiel didn’t let go of her hand as she led him upstairs. They could hear Dean rummaging through the kitchen, still talking to Sam and Benny as he did:

“I mean, one bite of pizza, could it really be that bad?”

“It’s going to make him violently ill, Dean.”

“But whiskey won’t?”

Sam laughed, in that weary, shivery way that indicated drunkenness. That was the last Castiel heard before Meg pulled him into their room and closed the door behind them.

“Be a sweetheart and shut off the curtains, will you?” she asked him. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

That was strange. Meg didn’t need to use the bathroom. She did enjoy showers and the warm water on her skin, but was she going to take one right now? Castiel’s mind wasn’t clear enough to actually catch on to that until she had already disappeared inside it and he was halfway into drawing the curtains.

He stopped at the last one, fascinated by the changing colors of the sky. From dark blue to purple, to pink and red and orange. The sunrise was beautiful. Standing under the sun, feeling its heat on one’s skin, that was wonderful too. He knew that turning into a vampire wouldn’t deprive him of that, not entirely, but it would be a while until he was strong enough to endure it and even then he couldn’t do it without limitation.

Maybe it was his drunken state, but he finally understood Meg’s reasons not to just turn him.

“I want you to have all of this, for as long as you wish.”

She was standing on the bathroom’s door, and Castiel’s heart broke. She had taken off her jeans and shirt and changed into a white, short nightgown.

He recognized it immediately. It was the one she had been wearing the first night she sneaked into his room. She had been looking to seduce him and feed from him and he’d thought she was a dream, a vision.

She was a vision right now as she stepped towards him, with her hair floating behind her and her lips red as blood. Castiel quickly drew the curtains close and extended his arms to embrace her.

“Are you wearing that for old time’s sake?”

She kissed him instead of answering. She kissed him a lot, especially since Castiel had agreed to be with her forever eventually, but he always had the impression that she was careful with him. Even she drank from him, even when she held him tight, her hands were always delicate in his skin, her mouth never grew insistent. Like she was holding back from him. Like she was giving him time to change his mind or get away from her, like he was a scared little mouse unaware of what the giant cat could do to him.

Not in that moment, though. She pressed him tight against her body and opened her mouth, letting Castiel drink her in, letting him feel every single curve of her body.

He was out of breath in a matter of seconds. His legs felt like they couldn’t hold him anymore and he was about to drop to his knees in front of her. And why not, really? She was sublime and wild, and he had never wanted her more.

She broke away and sank her face in his neck.

“I wore this the night I chose you,” she commented, with her breath tingling in his skin. “It’s only appropriate I wear it the day I ask if you want to choose me.”

Castiel shivered.

She’d explained what a mate was before. Someone a vampire chose, someone they were linked to by a blood bond that was unbreakable and sacred. She had told him she wanted him to be that to her, but only when he was sure.

She must have known he was. Because of course she did.

“Meg…”

“If you don’t want to go through with it, that’s fine,” she told him. “But I want you to know…”

“Will it hurt?”

“No,” she assured him. “And it will not change you. Well, not entirely. You’ll still be human, I think.”

“You think?”

“I haven’t done anything like this before,” she admitted. “I never found anyone… but I’ve heard stories and I’ve talked to Benny. It’ll be different. We’ll be connected.”

Castiel put a hand on her cheek.

“We already are.”

She smiled up at him, but there was still worry in her eyes.

“You’ll be able to sense me, like I sense you,” she told him. “To read my thoughts, even. You’re always complaining about how I can read yours and I figure this would makes a little more even.”

“Will I be able to know where you are?” Castiel asked.

“If I’m close enough.” Meg nodded. “Again, if you don’t want to…”

He shut her up with another kiss.

“When you were inside that warehouse and the flames were rising, I was terrified,” he told her. “Not because we were surrounded by hostile vampires… though that was part of it, I guess. But because I was sure I’d lost you.”

“Yes, Sam told me you were ready to run headfirst into it,” she confessed. “Which was stupid.”

Castiel tilted his head.

“Is that the reason you’re offering this to me now? So that I will know you’re safe in the future and I won’t do anything stupid?”

“Part of the reason,” Meg admitted, her fingernails raking through the back of his head. “We’re taking on Luc next, which… I won’t be able to pull the same trick twice, now that Ruby’s presumably gone back to him. She’ll tell him what we did to Boris; Luc will know I’m not keeping you away from the fight. He will try to hurt you.” She made a pause. Her eyes almost shone in the dark, like those of a cat. “And I’ll lose my mind if he does. I need to know you’re safe so I can fight him the way I need to.”

It made all the sense in the world. Meg had promised him they would be together and in peace once it was all over, once they were rid of Luc. He wanted that future more than anything else he’d wanted in his life, so he leaned over and kissed her.

“Then, let’s.”

Despite all her reasons and being the one who brought it up, Meg still seemed hesitant.

“This bond is unbreakable, Cas,” she reminded him. “You will be mine and I will be yours, until one of us dies.”

“I’m already yours,” he said. “And I have no intention of dying. Do you?”

Instead of answering, she kissed him again, hungry and passionate until all the thoughts in his head fled, until all he could think about was her and her body and her scent…

He didn’t even notice when she ripped his shirt opened until he was halfway into falling over the mattress. It sank under both their weight as Meg climbed on top of him, straddling him, and leaned to kiss him. Castiel moaned against her mouth, his skin alight with every single one of her touches. He pulled at the straps of her nightgown, sliding them down her shoulders, down her arms, revealing the pale skin underneath.

He touched her with trembling hands as she helped him out of his pants too. His skin was so feverish and sweaty that he shuddered when she lowered herself on his hardened shaft.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, looking down on him with widened eyes.

“Nothing,” Castiel panted. He wanted to scream there was nothing wrong at all and he just needed her to continue what she was doing, for the love of God, she couldn’t stop now. But he tried to calm his thoughts enough to give her a coherent response: “I… I didn’t expect you to be so… cold.”

Meg stared at him quizzically for a few seconds before she burst out laughing. She placed her open palms on his chest, making him shake even more.

“That’s what you get for fucking the undead girl, darling,” she said, sultrily leaning towards him. “Guess I’ll just have to steal all the heat from you.”

“Please,” Castiel moaned, with his hands holding unto her hips, because he needed to hold on to something in order not to lose his mind. “Take whatever you want from me.”

Meg’s body tensed at his words and a little sound escaped her lips. Not quite a moan, but a purr of pleasure.

“Don’t mind if I do.”

Even now, when she had been feeding from him regularly, his mind experienced a jolt of panic every time her teeth pierced his skin. He couldn’t help it, even knowing that she would never hurt him, that she would be careful with him. But the position that they were made the panic sharper and in turn, his arousal more urgent. He thrust his hips up, sinking deeper into Meg’s body and he would have jumped up if her hands hadn’t been holding him down against the mattress, clasped on his shoulders with an iron grip.

Her skin heated up under his fingertips and when she moved away, she actually had some color on her cheeks. She was breathing heavily and grinding herself against him, each movement of her hips making Castiel dizzier and wilder. He was losing control of himself, of his senses, of his own body, but it was alright. She was thinking for the both of them.

She placed a hand on his neck, right underneath his Adam’s apple and pressed ever so slightly.

“Come for me,” she whispered.

Castiel screamed out loud as his body jerked forwards and released the tension in his stomach. The sudden pleasure shook him up and blinded him and he was sure the only reason he stayed in his place was that Meg held him close against her chest, caressing his hair, kissing the top of his head.

Before he even had the chance to catch his breath, she pushed his head away from her skin and deliberately placed her thumb against one of her fangs, biting down until a droplet of blood bloomed on her skin. She offered it to him, gently pressing against his lips until his rushing mind managed to understand what he was expected to do. He flickered his tongue out and licked at it, before taking it into his mouth and sucking at it.

It tasted like copper and salt. It tasted like her.

They fell down over the covers, exhausted. Meg’s hair was a mess of dark curls and her mouth was open as she gasped for air, her chest heaving rapidly as she tried to catch her breath. Her mouth was red and swollen and she had never, ever looked more beautiful. Castiel kept an arm around her waist. His desire, his immediate need for her, was satisfied for the time being, but he still felt like he needed to hold on to her with both hands, to grip her tight to make sure that she didn’t slip away from his fingers.

After what felt like an eternity, Meg opened her eyes and stared directly at him.

A wave of emotions washed over him. It was like his own love for her was reflecting back on him, multiplied by a hundred years of solitude, a hundred years of restlessness finally coming to an end. It was peaceful and sweet, but it hurt, so deeply a sob came up to his throat before he even realized it was happening.

Meg placed her arms around his neck and pulled him closer to her skin, her fingers raking through his damp hair as she kissed his forehead, his cheeks, his nose and finally his mouth.

“Meg,” he called her, hoping that word itself could express everything that was going through his mind, because the back of his mouth was full of tears.

“I’m here,” she said, kissing him again. “I’m right here, my love.”

* * *

Dean couldn’t remember the last time he had drunk so much that he circled all the way back into the realization that he was absolutely plastered and nothing he said made a lick of sense, but still not being able to stop himself.

“No, no, but I mean it. What would happen? Someone must have tried it, right?”

“You’re thinking… way too much about this,” Benny said. He didn’t look much more sober than Dean, even though he had drunk at least twice what Dean did.

And Dean knew really shouldn’t have been trying to keep up with fucking vampires and their weird metabolism and super livers, but he would be damn if he lived to see the day his little brother could out-drink him.

Sam was currently sitting across the table from him, with his head resting on his open hand and staring at him with amusement and mild confusion.

“Yeah. I think it’s time for me to go to bed,” he decided.

“Come on, we’re having a conversation here…”

“I am really not interested in knowing if a vampire can survive jumping off a plane with no parachute.”

“At midnight.”

“At midnight, right.” Sam stood up, stumbled on his chair, almost collapsed against the counter and had to grab unto it to keep his balance. “I’m not trying that. I’m going to sleep.”

“You lack intellectual… intellect…”

“Intellectual curiosity,” Benny said.

“Yeah, that.”

Sam just made a dismissive gesture with his hand as he zigzagged on the basement’s direction. It hadn’t been made official, but it appeared that was where he was sleeping from now on.

Dean tried to think of something to scream at him, but his mind was slowly shutting off from a combination of exhaustion and alcohol.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have been drinking with all the meds they gave me at the hospital,” he commented.

“You think?” Benny said.

“Don’t tell that to Sam.”

Benny beamed at him. Damn, he was handsome. Did Dean just say that out loud?

“You really think so?” Benny asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah, like… in that bear kind of way?” What was he saying? Was he out of his mind? Should he go to sleep right now? He needed to cut his own tongue out or change the topic. “Like a… a bear wolf. No, a were bear. A werewolf. Are werewolves a thing?”

It was fortunate that Sam had gone to sleep, because he would have never let Dean live that one down.

“I have never seen one,” Benny replied with a chuckle. “Do you need some fresh air?”

“Yeah,” Dean admitted. “Yeah, I think I should have a bit of that. And water, too.”

“Sounds like a good idea.”

Dean leaned all of his weight on Benny and tried to ignore the tingling sensation of his hand around his waist. He was aware that the vampire could literally threw him over his shoulder and carried him wherever he wanted and do whatever he wanted with him. He wasn’t going to, though, because he was a good old Southern gentleman.

But also… it wasn’t like Dean would be against that to begin with.

Had he said that out loud?

He stared at Benny as he helped him reach outside, but it was impossible to tell from his face what he was thinking.

The smoldering ashes of the bonfire still laid where it had been, a heap of black soot and wooden splinters spread on the floor among all the empty Scotch bottles. Dean walked up and stared at it, wondering if he should get a broom and a duster for it (his dad hadn’t raised a sloppy lazy ass) when he realized that Benny was no longer holding him or walking by his side.

He turned around to find him standing under the shadow of the house, carefully staying away from the early morning sunrays that were bathing the yard in golden and orange tones.

“Right,” Dean muttered. He rubbed at his face. “I… I forgot.”

Benny looked up at him, very slowly. There was such a sadness in his soft, baby blue eyes that Dean had to resist the impulse to walk up to him and just…

Man, he was really super far gone.

“Did you? Because you’ve been talking about what vampires could and couldn’t hypothetically do for a while now,” Benny pointed out.

“Come on, man, that was just… just talk,” Dean said. He blinked a couple of times. His entire mind felt like a castle made out of cards, something that would fall apart with the faintest breeze, but he needed to stay awake. “I don’t think of you like that. I mean… I know that’s what you are and I still don’t know how I feel about the fact that you bit me. But if I accept that Sam is still Sam, then I have to… I have to think that you are too, right? You’re a person who drinks blood and gets burned in the sun, essentially.”

Was he talking too much? He felt like he’d been talking for hours, not making even the slightest lick of sense, and his mouth was dry. Why was Benny staring at him and not telling him to shut the hell up and stop saying stupid things he knew nothing about?

Benny had his hands in his pocket and was looked down at his shoes.

“Really?” he asked. He lifted up his gaze and the knot in Dean’s stomach dissolved into butterflies. Or maybe it was just nausea, he wasn’t sure, because the next thing Benny said could have easily sent him tumbling on the ground. “And would you consider me a person you’d be interested in… being with?”

The term was vague enough that Dean could have pretended he wasn’t sure what he meant. But the same sharp awareness that alerted him of how clumsy and stupid he sounded every time he spoke made it impossible for him to deny the subtext of the question.

“I mean… Cas and Meg make it work…” he mumbled.

“Cas is willing to become a vampire one day,” Benny pointed out.

“You know, that’s… that’s maybe a fifth date kind of talk?” Dean pointed out. “I understand you guys are incapable of taking anything with any level of calm, but if this has the remote chance of working, and I’m not saying it does, you’re going to have to slow way the fuck down and respect my, uh…” He snapped his fingers until he remembered the word he was looking for: “Boundaries.”

It was rich when not three minutes earlier he’d been thinking of all the things he wanted Benny to do to him. Luckily, the vampire didn’t bring it up.

“What would those be?” he asked instead.

“I’m… too drunk to think of any right now,” Dean admitted. “But not biting without permission would be a good start.”

Benny laughed. He sounded genuinely amused, not like he thought Dean was being ridiculous, which was a relief, considering all the ridiculous shit he’d been saying and thinking.

“Fine,” Benny agreed. “No biting. I promise.”

“Good.” Dean nodded. “Yeah, that’s… great.”

He realized all the sudden that he was too far away from Benny, and his strong arms, and his broad shoulders.

He took a couple of stumbling steps towards him and Benny, luckily, understood what he wanted without Dean having to say it. In a second, they were wrapped in each other again, so close that there was no air between them. Benny’s nose brushed against his and Dean closed his eyes. This was so easy, it was so nice to be right there. Maybe he hadn’t imagined all those things he thought he saw on Benny’s eyes the night they shared…

He wasn’t kissing him. Dean opened his eyes to discover with disappointment that he wasn’t even looking at him, but over his shoulder and beyond the mansion’s gate.

“What…?” Dean started asking.

Benny let go of him so fast that he almost fell face flat on the floor. In the time it took him to turn around, the vampire had already sprinted across the yard and by the time he had the presence of mind to go after him, Benny had already climbed the gate.

It took him a second to see what had that effect on him. There was a black car parked right behind the gate, a grey sedan with nothing particular or interesting about it. Dean heard its engine roaring to life just as Benny landed on the other side and he thought, for a second, that whoever was inside that car would leave without them finding out who they were and what they wanted.

But he had severely underestimated Benny.

He grabbed unto the car with both hands and pulled back with a groan of effort. His muscles bulged under his clothes and the car’s tires spun on the pavement. The smell of burned rubber invaded the air along with white, thick smoke as Benny’s face contorted in an expression of effort.

A second later, the car’s driver seat opened and none other than Detective Henriksen tumbled out. His dark eyes were open wide, staring at Benny with horror as he fought to stay firm on his legs and tried to run away.

Benny let go of the car and went after him. The man never had a chance. Benny caught up to him in the blink of an eye, grabbed him by his clothes and dragged him back to the gate, pushing him against it with such force Henriksen almost tumbled down again.

“What are you doing here?” Benny demanded to know, his voice a deep, threatening growl. “Why were you watching us?”

Henriksen seemed paralyzed and Dean understood why: Benny’s lips were pulled back, revealing a terrifying mouth full of sharp, white teeth, and he was fuming. Literally: the skin exposed to the sun in his face and hands was peeling back in shreds, with wisps of smoke rising from it, revealing grotesque red spots underneath. The scent of burned flesh tingled in Dean’s nose.

“What the fuck?” Henriksen screamed and reached inside of his jacket.

Through his terror, Dean knew exactly what he was going to do.

“No!” he screamed and Henriksen turned his head to him. For a fraction of a second, but that was enough for Benny to knock the gun out of the detective’s hand. It clattered against the floor and a single shot reverberated on the open road.

Benny’s knuckles hit against Henriksen’s cheeks, once, twice, but that was enough. The detective went limp and would’ve fallen to the floor if Benny hadn’t bothered to catch him.

“What the hell?!” Dean screamed.

“What the fuck is going on out there?” Meg echoed him. She had opened the windows and was looking out, careful to stay back in the shadows.

“Go tell her to open the gate for us, will you, love?” Benny requested, picking up Henriksen and throwing him over his shoulder as if he didn’t weight more than a feather. “This’ll be a long conversation.”

* * *

Victor had been run over by a car. Or at least, it very much felt like it. During the curse of his career, he had been punched in the face plenty of times, and one time, he had been attacked with a baseball bat. Not even that had been as hard as that man’s fists.

No, it wasn’t a man. What kind of man could hold a car back? What kind of man burned under the sun?

Had he hallucinated? Had he really seen that? He couldn’t be sure, since during the last week he had been lucky to catch two hours of sleep in a row. Maybe his captain was right and the exhaustion and stress was getting to him and he was starting to see things that weren’t there.

No, that wasn’t true. He had seen Sam Winchester last night, dancing and drinking along with his brother and the others. He had taken pictures of it. He opened his eyes to a comfortably dark room and immediately felt up the pockets of his jacket and pants.

His phone was missing. So was his wallet, his badge, his keys and, most worrying of all, his gun.

“Looking for something, detective?” a raspy female voice asked. Victor turned to find the woman, the one he’d seen the night before dancing with the Winchesters and the other two men, sitting on an armchair next to the bed where they had taken him.

She had her phone in her hand and was toying with it between her hands.

“I had one of these back in the nineties,” she commented. “It was one of those big, ugly things, really uncomfortable to carry around. I ended up tossing it on a river. I never got one of these new ones. I don’t really keep up with technology all that much, but the boys assure me, you’re not really great with it either. It took them two seconds to find a way to unlock it and show me some very interesting things you have stored in it.”

She turned it around to show him one of the pictures he had taken the night before. It showed Sam Winchester, with an arm around his brother’s shoulders, laughing and holding a bottle over his head. The light of the bonfire illuminated his profile.

“I don’t appreciate you coming over and taking pictures of my property and my people,” the woman continued. “I am very particular about my privacy. One of the reasons I never bought one of these new modern phones.”

“That’s mine,” Victor said, stupidly. His mouth felt like it was filled with cotton. “This is part of an official investigation…”

“Yeah, that’s the thing, Detective Henriksen. Victor. Can I call you Victor?” she asked, and she didn’t wait for a response before she said: “I talked to your captain again. He assured me you had been taken off the case, which was now being handled by an FBI team. He told me if I or Mr. Winchester saw you snooping around, we should report you.”

Victor closed his eyes as his stomach turned into a nervous knot. If she did report him, if she told anyone that he’d been there, he would lose his job for sure.

“I should report _you_ ,” he countered, trying to pretend he wasn’t losing his cool. “You’ve been hiding and abetting a dangerous suspect…”

“What’s this ‘delete all’ button do? Oops,” the woman said. She threw the phone on the bed and just like Victor suspected, all the photos were gone. “That’s unfortunate.”

Victor grabbed the phone.

“I can still call for backup!” he threatened. “You can’t get Sam Winchester out of here fast enough…”

“Sure. You can do that.” The woman shrugged, not bothered at all by his threat. “Or you can give me ten minutes of your time so I can explain what’s going on. Maybe we can even help each other out.”

“Why should I?”

The woman sighed and stared up at the ceiling, like she was counting to ten.

“You know, I was actually of the idea we should pretend you had a terrible car accident and hallucinated everything you saw here,” she told him. “But Sam said, no, he’s just trying to do his job, he might listen to us. Was he wrong, Victor? Because we can still knock you out and pretend this never happened. But then, you’ll never get answers about what you saw and about what happened to your victims.”

He could’ve contradicted her. He could have told her the truth would come out no matter what and that she had no business threatening a police officer like that.

But his head still hurt and he was more than certain that she was telling the truth. She was capable of that and more.

And besides… he was at a complete loss with this case. From the beginning, when it was a simple disappearance of a young couple, it had been nothing but dead ends and clues that didn’t add up. The more bodies that dropped, the more urgent his need for answers became, and now that she was offering them to him, it was simply too hard to refuse.

He put his phone back inside of his pocket.

“Five minutes,” he conceded.

“I don’t need more than that, Victor. Follow me, please.”


	15. Allegiance

“I’m fine,” Benny protested.

“That doesn’t look fine at all.”

“They’ll heal soon enough. I’m fine.”

Dean huffed and grabbed his hand, pulling it closer to himself as he grabbed the bandages with the other.

“This would be so much easier if you just accepted some help, you impossibly obstinate vampire.”

Benny groaned but didn’t protest anymore as Dean started spreading some ointment and bandaging his burns. Castiel exchanged a look with Sam and he shrugged. Of course, Sam had known it for a very long time, but Castiel was still trying to process the fact that Dean and Benny… well, he was in no position to judge them, he supposed. It was just surprising to him that it had taken quite this long to see it.

But the way Benny’s eyes softened when they fell on Dean and how Dean was careful with the burns on him, his eyebrows knit tightly with concern was so obvious the only excuse Castiel had not to have noticed it before was his preoccupation for Sam and then for Meg.

And then, of course, for Detective Henriksen.

“You seriously need to stop bringing in unconscious strays into my home, Benny,” Meg had complained, rubbing at her temples once Benny had dragged the detective’s body inside.

“He followed Dean,” Benny had informed her. “I saw it in his mind. He followed him here because he suspected he knew where Sam was.”

The brothers had exchanged a brief, concerned look that was an entire conversation all on itself.

“I don’t really care,” Meg had complained, looking up at the ceiling.

Castiel could feel the annoyance radiating from her. They had finally managed to steal a moment for themselves, finally been able to enjoy each other’s company, bodies, in the way they had both wanted so much, finally falling asleep exhausted in each other’s arm… and they’d had to wake up and get dressed almost immediately to deal with this.

He wondered if that was because of the blood bond. Then again, he really didn’t feel all that different. He was still himself. Maybe it was because he, too, was irritated that their idyllic moments together had been interrupted so abruptly. He was almost on board with Meg’s idea of pretending that Detective Henriksen had been in an accident and he was seeing and hearing things that weren’t there.

Dean had protested, though.

“That could ruin his career!”

“Yes, being jobless would be very unfortunate for him,” Meg had agreed. “You know would be even worse? Being _dead_.”

“She’s right. If he was stubborn enough to follow you here, what else could he discover?” Benny had pointed out. “Maybe he’d go after Lucifer and he wouldn’t hesitate to break his neck.”

Dean had huffed, but he’d stopped protesting, because, well… what other option did they have?

“Or…” Sam had said just as Castiel had thought that. “Hear me out… we could talk to him.”

“Explain,” Meg had demanded, crossing her arms over her chest.

It hadn’t taken that long and when Sam had said it, it made a lot of sense. Meg was still reluctant, though. Secrecy was the only way vampires could live their lives in peace and she wasn’t sure she wanted to reveal the truth to even more humans. However, even though she was officially the head of their coven, she was out-voted in this regards.

“Fine,” she’d agreed in the end, with a groan. “But be prepared for having to knock him out again. And there are some ointments for those burns in the first aid kit, Benny.”

After saying that, she’d turned their backs on them and marched upstairs once more.

“Aren’t you going to go after her?” Sam had asked Castiel.

In another occasion, Castiel might have done that, but he had the feeling Meg wanted to be left alone right at that instant. He didn’t say that. It would have been… complicated to explain.

The glance Benny had shot in his direction, however, made him think perhaps he didn’t need to say anything after all.

“Smart,” Benny had said, picking at the scabs already forming around his reddened skin. “It’s best if we let our fearless leader handle this.”

Castiel and Dean were exhausted and still a little drunk, but Victor was out for so long, they had time to take a very long nap. A long shower and a couple of coffee mugs later, Castiel was starting to feel like himself again, or at least, sharp enough to realize the way Dean’s fingers lingered on Benny’s skin every time they touched him to bandage him up.

Still, he really could have dozed off again and ask any of them to wake him when it was necessary. He leaned his head on his palm and closed his eyes, just for a moment, to rest…

A lightning of nervous energy, a tingling on his skin, woke him up right away.

“It’s… it’s Meg,” he mumbled when Sam looked at him with a frown. “She’s coming down.”

Neither of the others asked him how he knew that. Meg entered in the kitchen, followed closely by a baffled detective Henriksen.

Castiel immediately walked up to her. He wasn’t even thinking about it. It was the natural thing for him to do. Meg was in the room and he needed to stand by her side. He wouldn’t have even registered that as strange if Dean hadn’t raised his eyebrows at him.

He didn’t have a moment to reflect upon it, however, because Victor Henriksen made a strangled sound.

“I knew it,” he said, pointing straight at Sam. “I knew you weren’t dead.”

Sam stood up, very slowly. Detective Henriksen was tall, but Sam still managed to tower over him, and there was something… menacing about his demeanor. His hands were balled up in fists and the smile he gave the detective was forced. Was he thirst or just angry to be finally confronting the man who’d insinuated his involvement in Jessica’s death?

“I’m not,” he said, in the end.

Victor opened his mouth, but at the last second, he closed it again and looked around. He didn’t seem all that distraught to see Dean, but his shoulders sank and his position became slightly more defensive when his eyes fell upon Benny.

“What the hell is going on here?” he asked. “You said you’d give me answers.”

“Might want to sit down, detective,” Dean said, politely.

“Can I get you something to drink?” Castiel asked. All the eyes fell upon him, but he shrugged. “I thought we were trying to be polite.”

“Sure, give the man some coffee. And maybe an aspirin. You really did a number on him, Benny.”

Victor touched his face as he sat down, but stopped immediately. Castiel didn’t have to read his mind to know he probably hadn’t mentioned anything about the pain he was suffering to Meg and now he couldn’t decide what to make of the fact that she just knew it.

“You don’t need to understand everything,” Meg told him. “All you have to know is that Sam here had nothing to do with his girlfriend’s death. The man who did it and that is still dropping bodies at your doorstep is at large and we’re planning to stop him.”

Castiel set a mug in front of him. Detective Henriksen looked down at the black liquid in front of him, grabbed the mug and gulped down its contents without even stopping to take a break. He didn’t ask for sugar or anything of the sort.

After he was done, he grimaced slightly, but his voice sounded firm and confident when he asked:

“Is he like… you?”

He didn’t ask _what_ they were, Castiel noticed. Perhaps he was smarter than that.

“He is,” Meg confirmed. “A lot more violent and less compassionate, too. Which is why you have to let us deal with him. This is something police have no power to stop, but we do.”

Detective Henriksen was not freaking out. He had his hands on the table, eyeing each of them nervously, and Castiel wasn’t sure he wouldn’t get up and bolt for the door at any given moment. But for now, he was keeping his composure far better than Castiel had when he’d found out what Meg was and why she kept showing up at his place.

“I’m not sure it matters that you’re telling me this now,” he said after a moment. “Like you said, they took me off the case and handed it to the FBI people.”

“They’re not going to be able to do much either,” Meg assured him. “Or at all, if we’re being honest.”

“What kind of… no, don’t tell me.” Detective Henriksen shook his head. “Just… I’ve been going down through so many files, and found so many bodies, so many murders that were never closed that matched the ones in the last few days. It went back years, _decades_. It was never detected because there never seemed to be a correlation between the victims, and they all happened in different districts. My captain told me I was seeing a serial killer where there wasn’t one, but after we found two more victims…”

“There’s probably many more you don’t even know about,” Meg declared. “I’m sorry, detective. You won’t be able to bring justice to those people in a sense that’s satisfying to you. But you can still help us if you so feel inclined.”

Detective Henriksen didn’t seem like he was inclined to do much of anything. His eyes were wide open, he kept shaking his head and staring at each of them, like he couldn’t decide if even listening to them was a good idea, if he wasn’t insane just for stopping to hearing all of this.

Castiel sat down by his side and put a hand on his shoulder.

“I know it’s hard to believe, but they are telling you the truth,” he assured him. “We want the same thing detective. We want to stop it.”

Detective Henriksen blinked and turned his attention to the brothers, to Sam first and to Dean afterwards.

“And I suppose you two are in agreement with this.”

“Look, no offense, detective, but you’ve seen what they can do,” Dean said. “You getting in the middle of this would only put you in a lot of unnecessary danger.”

Henriksen leaned down back on his chair for a second and stared at the ceiling while the coven remained silence, waiting for him to make his choice.

“You said I could help you,” he said in the end, turning his attention to Meg once again.

“You can,” Meg said. “We’re going to need someone to keep civilians out of our way and cover our tracks when it’s all over. And I promise you, if you see attacks like these again… you won’t have to worry about them in the nearby future. You want to protect more people? This is the way you do it.”

Henriksen took a deep breath. He obviously wasn’t pleased with everything that was being said right now, but he made the wisest choice he could have in that situation:

“Tell me what you need.”

* * *

Dean had to give it to Meg: when she wanted people organized, she could be incredibly efficient. Before noon, she sent Detective Henriksen on his way and the rest of them to bed. He didn’t want to admit that he desperately needed it, but Sam practically dragged him down to the basement and told him to sleep on the bed while he would take the couch, which was ridiculous, because he could barely fit in there.

“I don’t mind, okay? You would be more comfortable if…”

“Dean, I’m not even sure I get neck pains or things like that anymore,” Sam told him, with a laugh. “And in any case, I think I need less sleep than you do.”

Dean stopped arguing and flopped down into the bed. He thought he was so tired that he would fall asleep right away, but instead, he found himself staring at the ceiling, eyes wide open and trying to listen in for Sam’s breathing to make sure he was asleep.

That lasted for about ten minutes.

“What’s wrong?” Sam asked him after a while.

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Don’t lie to me, Dean. I’m getting this… vibe from you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not giving out any vibes,” Dean replied. Perhaps a little too fast and a little too forcefully for it to be believable, but that wasn’t his fault. Sam had caught him by surprise.

“Sure, you’re not,” Sam said, not even trying to hide his sarcasm. “Just… talk to me?”

Dean sat up. His brother was sitting up on the couch, looking at him with a worried expression on his face and well, vampire or not, that still managed to break Dean’s heart every time.

“It’s just… are you… adjusting to this? To… what you are now?”

Sam reflected upon that question.

“No,” he confessed in the end. “Not at all.”

Dean didn’t know why that made him feel a certain relief. It wasn’t because he didn’t want Sam to feel better about his situation but at the same time… well, he wasn’t sure how to say it out loud. He had seen Luther and Boris and all those vampires at the warehouse and he knew that Meg and Benny were different, but still… there was a very clear and present threat that he could lose his brother to his blood thirst. That terrified him.

He didn’t say any of that out loud and he had the impression he didn’t need to, because Sam nodded.

“Look, if I happen to hurt someone…”

“Sam, you wouldn’t…”

“You don’t know what it’s like, Dean,” Sam said. “I’m fine now, but if I get too far gone… I was even capable of hurting you. You know I would never do that if I was in my right mind.”

“I know. You don’t have to…”

“Meg and Benny don’t think it’s a big deal if I lose control again and kill someone,” Sam explained. “I don’t know if it’s because they had been vampires for so long it just doesn’t bother them anymore or what, but I can’t trust them to stop me if I go there again. Cas is completely enamored with Meg, so he wouldn’t think it’s bad either. They would all just help me cover the evidence and treat me like a kid that broke a plate or something.”

“What are you saying?”

Sam clenched and unclenched his fists, staring at them like it was the first time he saw them.

“You’re going to stay with us, aren’t you?” he asked him. “After this is all over?”

“Well, it seems like you’re going to be here for the foreseeable future, so I don’t see where else would I go,” Dean declared. He didn’t even really had to think about it.

Sam let out a deep breath and closed his eyes.

“Then it has to be you,” he concluded.

“It has to be me… what?”

“The one who stops me if I go over the line,” Sam explained. “If I hurt someone…”

Dean understood the words that Sam was saying, but his mind simply refused to process them, to understand them.

“Sam, you wouldn’t…”

“You don’t know that, Dean,” Sam interrupted him. His voice was raised and his shoulders were tensed in frustration. “I don’t know that. I don’t want to become…”

“Are you listening to yourself? You’re asking me to kill you!”

Sam shrunk on himself and Dean realized he had been screaming. He pinched the bridge of his nose and kicked the covers aside to go to his brother. He lowered himself until he was crouching in front of him, the way they did when they were children and Sam was upset about something. A kid had said something mean to him in the playground or a girl had turned down a date with him or he’d had another fight with their dad.

Dean always felt like he didn’t know what to do on those occasions, but he sometimes, somehow, eventually managed to say something to console him. He wasn’t sure he could do that now, but he needed to try.

“I can’t do that, Sam.”

“Dean…”

“But I can talk to Benny about it,” Dean said. “I can ask him to keep an eye on you. He will know if you’re going overboard.”

Sam scanned his face with worried eyes.

“You trust him that much?”

Dean bit the inside of his cheek. He didn’t think Sam was that stupid that he hadn’t noticed what was going on and frankly, he had never sat him down and had “the talk” with him. Doing it now would only make the conversation about himself, and frankly, Sam didn’t need that right now.

“I trust he understands what you’re going through better than I could,” he concluded. “You know what I can do for you, though?” Dean put a hand on Sam’s cheek and gently pulled his face up. “I can remind you of the things that were always important to you. I can keep you grounded.” He made a pause before he added: “I can keep you human.”

Sam stared at him a little longer. Then, slowly, he closed his eyes, and nodded.

“Thank you, Dean.”

“It’s going to be okay, little brother.”

And he hugged him. Because that was the easiest way to end the conversation. Because he didn’t want to hear anymore how Sam hated and feared himself. Because it was the best way for Dean to tell him that he was there and he was not going to leave him, no matter what he did or didn’t do.

That had always been his job, anyway.

* * *

Meg called for a coven meeting a little while after the sun went down.

“How thirsty are you?” she asked Sam.

Sam licked his lips and reflected on this question for a moment.

“I think I’m fine,” he said.

“Are you, though?”

Sam opened his mouth, closed it again, and then confessed:

“I think I might not be as fine by the end of the night.”

Meg studied him closely for a few seconds and then nodded.

“In that case, we have to make a grocery run. You, Cas and I will go,” she decided. “Benny, Dean, you’re on tracking duty.”

“And what exactly does that mean?” Dean asked.

He was the only one who seemed confused. Everybody else had understood it perfectly.

“You’re tracking Ruby,” Castiel said.

“We’re finally going after them,” Sam added, with a small glimmer in his eye.

“We need to know where they are crashing and examine the terrain before we attack, how many of Boris’ coven went to him and what we’re going to tell Henriksen,” Meg clarified. “All of this before we make our move. Is everybody on board with that plan?”

Nobody protested. It wasn’t so much a plan as the outline of one, but Meg commanded the room. It had been completely unspoken and undebated, but she had become the head of their small, unconventional coven.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to go?” Benny asked her later, as they were going into their cars. “Billie’s told you before you freak her out.”

“We can’t keep drinking from delivery guys,” Meg shot back. “And as for her, she needs to get over her sensitivities. Call us if there is any trouble.”

Castiel frowned but said nothing as Benny and Dean got into Dean’s Impala and drove away.

“Who were you talking about?” he asked as they headed for Meg’s Mercedes. “Who’s Billie?”

Meg outright ignored his question.

“Sam, you want to drive?”

“Me?” Sam asked, but he reacted fast enough to catch the keys Meg threw at him.

“Sure. Driving requires concentration, concentration makes you think about something other than how much you want some blood.”

“Huh.” Sam fidgeted with the keys in his hand. “That actually makes sense.”

Meg smiled widely at him.

“And besides, I get the chance to make out with my boyfriend in the backseat.”

“Oh.” Castiel felt his face burning. “We don’t have to…”

But Meg had already opened the door and grabbed his hand to get him inside with her.

As a result, he was slightly distracted during the whole drive. It was really hard to focus on anything else when Meg had him pinned down against the leather seat, kissing him softly and sliding her hands under his shirt until he moaned against her skin.

“Don’t you… don’t you have to give Sam instructions?” Castiel gasped as she moved her knee between his legs to give him some much needed friction.

“The GPS can take care of that,” she replied, with a chuckle.

“Oh, my God,” he’d heard Sam muttered. But that was the only thing he commented until the GPS’ robotic voice announced they had reached their destination.

Sam parked the car and looked around as Castiel tried to pat his hair down and made sure there were no lipstick stains on his neck or clothes.

“Is this the right place?” Sam asked.

Castiel looked out the window and understood immediately what he meant.

“A funeral home?”

“Billie is the embalmer and owner of this fine establishment. We have a guy at a morgue and at a couple of hospitals too,” Meg explained, quickly retouching her makeup in the rearview mirror. “Benny worked out the system. We rotate them and pay them handsomely so they don’t ask too many questions. I’ll be right back, boys. Behave.”

She exited the car and strode inside the funeral home without even looking back at them. A heavy silence fell inside of the car. Sam turned on the radio and tried to pretend like he was very interested in the

“I am… sorry about that.”

Sam scratched the back of his neck, nervously.

“It’s fine, man,” he assured him. “Just… next time maybe we can get a limo with one of those… tinted windows.”

“That wouldn’t be a terrible idea,” Castiel agreed. “But also, how are you holding up?”

“Why does everybody keep asking me that?” Sam huffed, irritated.

“I just meant because… well, my blood was definitely rushing back there,” Castiel explained. His entire body felt like it was on fire from the embarrassment. “And you mentioned you were getting thirsty, so I thought you would feel…”

“Oh,” Sam understood suddenly. “Umh… you know, I didn’t actually notice.”

“Was it because you were driving? Was Meg right?”

“It might have been that, but I think it has more to do with how different you…” He made a pause, like he was trying to think up of the best way to explain it. “Smell.”

“I smell?” Castiel asked, a little taken aback. He had taken a shower before they went out and changed his clothes, he didn’t think…

“You smell like Meg,” Sam explained. “It’s not enticing. It’s like you have a huge red flag around you warning me I will die if I touch you.”

“Huh,” Castiel mumbled. He hadn’t even considered the way he smelled to other vampire would change after creating the blood bond with Meg. He also hadn’t considered that perhaps Meg making out with him was a way for her to mark him, to leave her scent on him. Sort of like how cats marked their humans. “Do you think you can still hurt me if you really wanted to?”

“Like if I was Luc?” Sam suggested. He thought about it. “Yes, probably. But I know I couldn’t do it without enraging Meg.”

Castiel thought about this and opened his mouth to ask something else, but Meg returned at that precise moment, carrying a cooler with her. She placed it on the passenger seat and told Sam to get in the back seat.

“I’m going to be driving, and you boys better behave.” She opened the cooler and handed Sam a blood bag. “Eat up. You’re going to need your strength.”

“Why, what’s going on?” Castiel asked as Sam obediently sank his teeth through the plastic, his face scrunching up in a gesture of disgust.

“Dean and Benny just called,” Meg told him. “They found Ruby outside of town, not far from where Luc took you and Jessica.”

Sam lifted his eyes, a drop of blood trickling down his chin that he quickly wiped away.

“And?”

Meg turned on the engine.

“And it wasn’t pretty.”

* * *

Ruby’s body was held up in the air by wooden stakes. The end of the stakes pierced through her flesh and her skin, through her back, arms and leg, curving her down like she was lying spread in the most uncomfortable bed ever. Her blood came out trickling down the wood, forming pools on the concrete underneath.

The worst part of all, however, was that she was still alive.

She twitched, trying to move as if there was a way to find a more comfortable position. They had parked at a considerable distance, so Dean wasn’t privy to the more gruesome details of her torture, but even from all the way there, it looked… well, awful.

“Why the hell would they do that?” he asked, shivering.

“As a warning for us,” Benny said. His expression was somber. “I guess we lost the surprise factor when she came back to them.”

“I get that, but that’s… that’s just excessive,” Dean commented. He tried to look away, because the sight was making his stomach turn, but it was so terrible he couldn’t do that. “I mean, she did come back to them, right?”

“She tried to give them Castiel and she failed,” Benny pointed out. “According to Meg, Luc was never one for rewarding failure.”

“No kidding.” Dean took a deep breath to keep the vomit in his stomach. “So now what?”

“Now you call Detective Henriksen and make sure no civilians come this way,” Benny replied. “And I tell Meg to get here.”

“Okay, sure. But I meant her.”

Benny looked up at Ruby with his mouth twisted with indecision.

“Shouldn’t we pull her down?” Dean asked, when his silence went on for too long.

“Maybe we should wait until the others get here,” he said. “I don’t like that she’s just laid there for us. It’s almost like an invitation.”

“A trap,” Dean understood.

“A very obvious one. I didn’t live this long by just walking into traps.”

Dean was going to point out that they had practically walked into one just a few days prior, but he bit his tongue. Really, that was the last thing they needed.

It took Meg twenty eternal minutes to get there. She got out of the car first, followed by Sam and Castiel a few steps behind her. She raised her gaze towards Ruby’s tortured body, but it was impossible to guess what she was thinking from her blank expression.

“Luc’s got more creative,” she said in the end. “Pull her down.”

Despite Benny’s protest a few minutes earlier, him and Sam moved to do exactly that: Sam supported him over his shoulders while Benny carefully grabbed Ruby’s hand. He pulled the stake out.

Ruby’s scream made Dean gnash his teeth. Another wave of nausea came unto him, because he could look down at the pavement underneath his feet, but he couldn’t stop hearing the wet, disgusting sounds the wood made and the yells of pain that came out from a throat that, for all intends and purposes, shouldn’t be working still.

It took far too long until finally Benny stepped down from Sam’s shoulders, carrying Ruby’s body like it was a sack over his shoulder. He settled her down on the ground, kneeling right in front of all of them.

She looked deranged as she raised her eyes at them. There were sore spots in her skin, no different than the burns in Benny’s. Vampires were all pale, but her appearance downright sickly, with her lips dry and cracked. Her hair fell down like a tangled mess of dried blood over her shoulders.

It was pathetic, but there was no compassion in Meg’s voice when she said:

“You should have stayed with me. I never would’ve done this to you.”

“Meg,” Ruby croaked. She had her hands on her knees, holding so tightly her nails sank on the ripped fabric of her jeans. “Please. You have to know…”

“Luc is coming, isn’t he?” Meg asked. “Your screams were supposed to be their alarm.”

“I…”

“We don’t have time for this,” Meg cut her off. “Sam, what should we do about her?”

Sam looked up at her, his eyes opened wide in shock. He looked down at Ruby and then, slowly, towards Dean.

He didn’t have to say a word for Dean to understand what he was silently asking. He nodded.

“I think we should kill her,” Sam said.

“Wait,” Ruby replied, her eyes opening wide in panic as Benny immediately headed back towards the cars. “Wait, you can’t…”

“You tortured me,” Sam replied. “You killed Jess.”

“Luc did that!” Ruby protested. She was shaking now, panicked, but she was too weak to actually stand up and run away.

“You betrayed us,” Sam kept saying. “You don’t deserve to live.”

“I made you!” Ruby yelled. “I gave you this life, and this is how you pay me?! Meg, you can’t let him do this!”

Meg crouched in front of her and put a hand on the back of her head, forcing her to look at her.

“I gave you refuge after you disobeyed Luc and he tied you to a tree and left you to burn in the sun,” she reminded her. “I gave you the chance to win Sam over. When we were together, all those years ago, I called you my friend. And you betrayed me. You left us to burn at Boris’ warehouse and you tried to give Castiel up to Luc.”

Ruby’s lips peeled back to reveal… not quite a smile. A grimace. A threat.

“We were never going to win against him,” she told Meg. “You are not going to win this.”

“So I should just grovel and let him torture me?” Meg shook her head. “I’d rather die.”

“Well, then, I guess you won’t be that far behind me.”

Benny returned with the machetes. Silently, he handed one to Sam. He held it firmly in his grasp, but he still hesitated once he was actually standing in front of Ruby. Benny took a step forwards, but Meg made a gesture for him and he stayed right where he was.

“Sam?”

Ruby looked up at him. It was strange. Even through the mess of burned and bloodied flesh that was her face, her eyes were lit with something almost like… fascination.

“My God, you’re perfect,” she whispered.

It was all Sam needed. With a growl, he swung the machete forwards. It cut through flesh and bone easily. Ruby’s head rolled on the floor and her body collapsed in a pool of darkened blood.

It wasn’t pretty, but Dean let out a deep sigh when it was done. She was gone. Sam didn’t have to ever think about her again.

He moved to put a hand on his shoulder, but Benny grabbed his wrist and pulled him to stay back in his place.

“We have company,” Benny said.

“Good.” Meg raised her own machete, smiling from ear to ear. “It was about time this party started.”

Castiel became tense, biting the inside of his cheek.

Dean was the last one to see them: the vampires emerged from the shadows of the abandoned houses, their eyes glimmering in the dark.

Ready to come at them.


	16. Retribution

There wasn’t a second of hesitation, no moment for them to catch their breaths.

Meg ran forwards with a battle cry, directly towards the vampire closest to her: a man at least a head taller than her. She looked tiny compared to her opponent and Castiel’s stomach turned at the sight, sure that he was going to overtake her. He charged at her with a powerful roar, but Meg simply sidestepped him and swung her machete. She didn’t quite catch his neck, but the blade sank on his shoulder and retreated, howling in pain as blood spread through his wound.

Someone was yanking him back. Castiel hadn’t even realized that he was almost running towards her.

“Come on, man, remember the plan!” Dean said as he dragged him back.

“Right. Yes,” Castiel mumbled.

Every inch of his body wanted to run to Meg, to protect her from her enemies, but he shut that down and followed Dean back into the car. He handed him the keys and Castiel turned on the engine even before Dean had finished closing the door of the passenger seat.

The highlights of the Impala illuminated a gruesome scene. There was blood and limbs spread through the floor, a mass of bodies that run towards each other growling and clawing at each other, the glint of weapons that headed towards one another. It was impossible to tell their friends from their enemies, but they all moved away from the light.

Dean grabbed the shotgun they had hidden under the seat and propped it up against the open window.

“Drive!”

Castiel stepped on the pedal. He knew he didn’t have to be careful with whether he crashed against anyone, but the impact of a body against the car still rattled him. Dean held the weapon up and aimed.

The echo of the shot rang loud, followed by Dean’s satisfied laughter.

“Turns out they do die if you blow their brains out!” he announced.

Castiel really didn’t mean to cut his celebration short, but he looked ahead and just had to.

“Dean!”

At least three vampires were standing in front of the car, all of them with blood on their faces, their eyes blown so wide they looked black in the light. Their teeth were showing, blood spreading down their chins and neck.

“Ah, shit,” Dean muttered, as he raised his gun to shoot again.

The vampires ran at them as he squeezed the trigger, grabbing at the canon just as the bullet went out. It hit the vampire on the shoulder and he fell backwards, taking the shotgun with him as the other two stretched their hands to grab at Dean’s wrist.

Castiel accelerated again, driving blindly while Dean tried to roll up the window and shake off the vampire that was hanging unto his arm. Castiel turned the wheel, changing the direction of the car fast enough that the vampire’s body flew away and Dean managed to roll up the window again.

“Now what?” his friend asked, gritting his teeth.

Castiel tried to calm his breathing. They had driven away from the fight and they couldn’t see in the dark, but they could still hear the growls and the screams. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to focus…

_Meg._

It was like finding a light, like following a song he knew all too well. Their hearts beat in unison, the drops of her blood rushed in his veins pulling her towards her. She was close, but… away from the sounds of where the main fight was happening.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up when he understood why.

“She’s broke through the ranks. She’s going after Luc.”

“Sam and Benny are still fighting!” Dean said.

“I know!” Castiel shouted, trying to calm the panic that invaded every single cell in his body.

“Why would she leave them?”

Because this wasn’t their fight. Meg wanted Luc dead, and she knew there was a chance she wouldn’t survive it. And if she did, she wanted them all safe.

She was going at it alone, to protect all of them.

“What do we do?” Dean continued asking.

Castiel couldn’t think, couldn’t move, his hands gripping the wheel tight, but he was unable to drive again. If Meg lost against Luc… if he hurt her, if he lost her…

“CAS!” Dean shouted and shook him by the shoulder. “Keep it together man! Meg needs you!”

Those might have been the right words to break through the fog of fear paralyzing him. Castiel took a deep breath, turned on the engine and drove directly towards the sounds of the fight.

He had time to see Sam looking at them and jumping out of the way before he crashed against the other vampire. Its bones made a chilling, crunching noise as the wheels ran over him. Through the rearview mirror, Cas saw Sam raising his machete and guiding it down in a single movement. The blood sprinkled his face. He wiped it carelessly just as Dean and Castiel exited the car.

“Where’s Meg?” he asked them.

“We think she went after Luc.”

Sam’s eyes opened wide and he shook his head.

“No, that’s not right. She said she was going to tell me, that I could go with her…”

“Well, she lied,” Dean said, with a shrug. “Get in the car. Where’s Benny?”

He didn’t have to ask again. Out of the shadows, two figures leapt and fell at their feet, embraced in a wild hug. They rolled on the floor with wild growls as the two of them tried to keep the other away from them.

Dean lifted the shotgun, but there was no way he could aim without injuring Benny, and when Sam tried to get in between them, the other vampire threw a punch at him, making him stumble backwards.

Castiel felt another lurch in his stomach, a feeling of emotion that wasn’t entirely his. He grabbed at his machete and when Benny swirled with his opponent again, he ran at them and grabbed the vampire by the hair.

He must have caught him by surprise, because before he even had the chance to raise his hands, to try to escape Castiel’s grip, he had already place his machete around his throat. Benny crawled away from him and staggered to his feet with Dean’s help.

“It’s over, Luther,” he said, with a hoarse voice. “Your coven is all dead or gone, and Luc will be too, soon.”

Luther did something very strange: he laughed, like Benny had just told him a very funny joke.

“You think I give a shit about the coven?” he asked. “I just want to kill _you_ , you fucking…”

Castiel pressed the blade against his skin to shut him up.

“Where’s Luc?”

“Why don’t you try and find out?” Luc said, defiantly. “I’m sure your master already found him. Well, she won’t be your master much longer if…”

He gargled and when quiet when the machete sank in his flesh.

It was odd. Castiel was expecting some sort of resistance, but it cut cleanly through bone and muscles, so fast he even had to be careful not to cut himself.

He should have felt something when Luther’s head rolled on the floor. Disgust or anger or even guilt. Anything.

All he felt, however, was the same panic as before. He didn’t have time to care about this random vampire when his girlfriend was in danger.

“Come on,” he said.

None of the others moved, all staring at him like they hadn’t been chopping and shooting at other vampires a few minutes before.

“Did you guys hear me? I said let’s go!” Castiel said, gesturing towards the car.

This time, they all moved at once. Dean got into the driver’s seat while Sam and Benny huddled in the back.

“How exactly are we going to find her?” Dean asked.

“Castiel will know where she is,” Benny said.

“Really?” Sam asked.

Castiel took a deep breath.

“I’m still new to the… blood bond thing. But I think I can find her.”

Dean shot him a quizzical look, but he turned the engine on without another word.

“You’re the boss,” he said. “Where to?”

* * *

The rows of abandoned houses and broken pavement opened up in front of her. Meg’s feet hit against the grey concrete rhythmically, ignoring the pull and the intuition that told her she was making a mistake. She needed to turn away, to go back to her coven, to her boys.

They would be fine. They were all fighters. She had no doubt in her mind they wouldn’t take long to dispatch all of Luc’s minions.

She only felt sorry that she had to break her word to Sam, but if she survived this, she trusted he would understand. Even weakened as they were without Ruby and what was left of Boris’ coven, Luc and Lilith were older than any of the other vampires they had confronted. Crueler, too. If she could spare them having to face against them, having to die at their hands, she had to take the chance.

And if she died, well… Castiel would feel it. Her heart broke at the thought that he would have to go through that pain, but she trusted the moment he felt that, he would know to tell the others to turn tail and flee out of there.

She only wished she had more time to say goodbye to him.

She stopped dead in her tracks. The house at the other end of the street, the bigger and sturdier one in a series of half-decayed structures, had its broken windows all lit up. Kerosene lamps, she figured, or some other sort of soft light that wouldn’t damage Luc’s old eyes.

They had left it there, ready for her to walk into it. So they knew too that this could end in one of two ways and weren’t even trying to run from their fight.

Good.

She took a few steps towards it when the smell of a man’s cologne tingled on her nose. She was on him before the safety of his gun had even finished clicking, her hand closing around his throat.

“Victor. This was not part of our agreement,” he said, lowering her voice.

Detective Henriksen’s eyes blew wide open with shock, but to his credit, he did a great job of otherwise hiding his fear. It would have been a lot more commendable if Meg couldn’t smell it all over him.

“The agreement was that I would try to keep people out of this place while you dealt with… them,” he replied, his voice firm and calm. “And I tried, but apparently some kids were parked by the river and they heard the gunshots. I just heard the report on our radio.”

Meg bit the inside of her cheek. That meant more humans were coming. That meant her coven could get in trouble.

She needed to end this quickly. She let go of Detective Henriksen’s throat.

“That thing’s not really going to help you,” she warned him, pointing at his gun. “They’re going to move to fast for you to take a clean headshot.”

Detective Henrisken’s lips quivered slightly.

“What the hell are they?” he asked. “What the hell are you?”

A smarter man than him perhaps would’ve asked those questions before he walked straight into danger, but it Detective Henriksen had proven that he was not a smart man.

“That’s no trouble of yours. I’m going to deal with them.”

Henriksen’s eyes lowered towards Meg’s machete.

“What do you need me to do?” he asked.

Finally, a sensible question.

“If any cops show up here to investigate, tell them you were practicing your aiming. Keep them out of the way.”

She stepped away from him and towards the house, but she changed her mind at the last second.

“And if you see my boys…”

“Should I send them your way?”

“Absolutely not,” Meg told him. “Shoot them to get them to stay back if you have to. Somewhere not fatal, preferably.”

They were definitely not going to like that, but it didn’t matter. She’d wasted enough time already.

The door wasn’t booby-trapped, which was surprising. She was expecting knives and guillotines, but instead, she found blood-covered walls and lamps lightning her way through the corridor and towards the stairs. Luc was welcoming her into his lair.

The steps creaked under her boots.

Upstairs, someone had gone through the trouble of tearing the halls walls down to make a round open lounge. Luc, with his usual theatrics, had found himself a velvet couch, where he was sitting currently with Lilith on his lap, her arms wrapped lovingly around his neck.

They both looked at her not with anger or with fear, not even with despise, but something entirely different. It had been a long while since Meg was a mistake-prone teenager, and even then, her father had never looked at her with such disappointment as she was seeing in her Sire’s eyes.

“Meg. Good,” he said. “I was hoping you would show so we can put all this ridiculous business to rest one and for all.”

“I’m sure you did,” Meg replied, rolling her eyes at him.

“You’re being so disrespectful!” Lilith complained, but Luc put a hand up to shut her up.

“I’m certain Meg didn’t mean it like that, darling,” he said. Lilith made a face, but she climbed down from his lap and allowed him to stand up when he pushed her gently. “I was hoping you would eventually come to your senses. You’ve been running away from your family all this time, child.”

Meg fought to keep her face expressionless as he stepped towards her. It had been such a long time since she was in his presence that she’d forgot so many things about him: the refined cruelty of his words, the way his eyes burned through her, how he seemed to occupy the entire space around him, like he demanded all the attention of the world to be settled on him.

She let him come close, not because she thought she would have a better chance at chopping his head off if he did. She simply was too stunned to stop him, even when he placed his hands on her cheeks.

“It’s time you come back into the fold,” he said.

“Or?” Meg asked, raising her eyes at him.

Luc’s dignified expression soured. It was so subtle she wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t been standing so close to him.

“Or what?” Meg continued asking. “Are you going to do to me what you did to Ruby?”

Luc scoffed.

“She had her punishment coming and you know it well. I’d tolerated her antics long enough. First she poisoned you against us, then she came to you when she knew she had turned that boy without my permission? She was out of control and I hope this time, the lesson will stick.”

“Well, you’re not going to have much luck sticking anything to her,” Meg replied, trying to get her voice to sound calm. “Unless you can find a way to stick her head back to her body.”

That managed to get Luc to step back, finally. His eyes shot open in surprise.

“You killed her?” he asked. Lilith let out a cry, of pure anger and disgust as she stood on the couch. Her blonde hair was almost standing around her head, reminding Meg of a rattlesnake.

“You had no right! She was your sister!” she screamed out.

Luc paced around the room, shaking his head. Meg couldn’t tell if it was an act or if he truly hadn’t expected her to kill Ruby.

“That’s too much. First your brother, and now her?” he asked. “How could you do that to your own coven?”

“They weren’t my coven anymore,” Meg shot back. “You came into my territory, I had the right to decide what to do with you. Those are the rules of engagement, remember? Whenever we went anywhere, we had to either make nice or get rid of the competition. You taught me that, Luc.”

Luc stopped and turned to her. There were ambers in his eyes now, golden and terrifying, but she forced herself to keep looking at them. No matter how much she wanted to shrink and beg for his forgiveness. That didn’t come from her. That was him pushing his will on her and she was not going to budge.

“You think you can _lead_? You think you can hold this territory?” he asked, jeering. “You and what? The traitor that used to hunt us? Ruby’s boy? Your human pets? That’s pathetic, Meg.”

“Maybe,” Meg said. “But we were enough to take down Boris and the welcome committee you made out of his scraps.”

“Oh, them.” Luc dismissed them with a gesture. “They came to me for protection, but they were weak. Boris kept them weak and subdued. Some of them didn’t even have a month, can you believe that? None of them were worthy.”

If she needed a reminded of just how callous Luc was, of just how little he valued the lives of those around him, she couldn’t have asked for a better one.

“I’m gonna ask you one last time, Meg,” Luc insisted. “Come back to us. All offenses will be forgiven… after you receive the appropriate punishment, of course. After we get rid of your pet and remind you exactly who you are.”

Meg threw her head back… and laughed. It was all that she could do. He never understood. What Castiel gave to her, what Benny, Sam and Dean meant to her. His coven was ruled with fear and hatred. There was only one answer she could give to that.

“I’d rather be dead.”

Luc’s eyes glimmered with anger.

“Have it your way, then.”

Something glinted in his hand as he jumped at her. She dodged him and put her arm up to protect herself. The edge of his knife caught on her arm, cutting through her clothes and leaving a searing pain in her arm. She growled and raised her machete, but before she could attack, Luc’s fist impacted on her stomach and sent her flying across the room.

She crashed against the wall and fell to the floor with a groan of pain, as debris rained down on her. Lilith laughed, somewhere to her left, clapping as if this was most entertaining to her.

“Kill her!” she shrilled. “Kill her, Luc, and then we can live in her house!”

“Yes,” Luc agreed as he stalked towards Meg. “We will take everything, my love. We’ll make a new coven. One that won’t betray us.”

Meg jumped to her feet and moved forwards, but maybe the hit she’d just got was a lot harder than she’d calculated. Her vision went black for a second and she lost her step and in a moment, her wrist was caught in the iron grip that was Luc’s hand. He twisted until Meg screamed and her fingers couldn’t hold on to the machete anymore. It clattered on the dirty floor when she let go as her bones cracked under Luc’s grip.

“Sorry, dear,” he said, raising the knife above his head. “End of the line.”

The bullet hit him on the shoulder. It wasn’t enough to hurt him, but it did startled him enough that he let go of Meg.

“What…?” he asked, turning towards the door, enraged.

Detective Henriksen stood there, his gun still smoking. His eyes grew wide when Luc didn’t go down. On the contrary, he turned towards him with his teeth bare.

“Is this one of your pets too?” he asked, taking a step towards him.

Victor shoot him again, this time square in the stomach. Luc groaned, angry and Meg realized she had no time to waste. Ignoring the pain in her arm, she rolled down, grabbed her machete and ran towards Lilith.

She let out a squeal when Meg grabbed her by the front of her dress and her nails sank on Meg’s skin, drawing blood. Meg backhanded her as hard as she could and Lilith fell backwards, dragging her down with her. Another shot rang above their heads, but when Luc growled, she realized Victor had not had the presence of mind of putting a bullet in his head.

So she was going to have to take matters into her own hands. She rolled over herself, with Lilith still screaming and scratching at her, her face deformed in a rictus of fury. Meg bucked under her weight, but Lilith’s hands closed around her throat.

“You’re never betraying us again,” she said, as she started to squeeze.

The lack of air alone wouldn’t kill her, Meg knew. But Lilith was strong enough that she could cut through her throat with just her nails. She could already feel them sinking into her flesh as she clawed through her skin and her muscles…

She raised the machete and again, failed. The blade sank on Lilith’s shoulder, a little below her neck, but she howled in pain and it was enough for Meg to punch her in the face. The bones of her nose made a horrible sound. She raised the machete to hack at her again…

The house _shook_.

The entire building moved like it’s very foundations were collapsing and for a second, everyone stopped.

Luc forgot instantly about Victor, unconscious or dead on the floor now, and turned towards Meg.

“What did you do, you bitch…”

Maybe she was too distracted by Lilith’s screams or by the rage in Luc’s eyes or by the fear that she might not win this one after all, but Meg didn’t smell them or heard them coming. She didn’t imagine that the shaking she’d heard a second before could have been one of their cars crashing through the house’s walls and the clattering in the stairs steps that were coming up to her rescue.

The surprise that she felt when she saw her boys bursting into the room didn’t last too long, though.

“Meg!” Castiel shouted.

Luc and Lilith’s eyes immediately fell on him and Meg knew they realized exactly who he was.

“Get him out!”

Benny and Sam moved forwards immediately, blocking Luc’s path when he tried to moved towards Castiel. She wasn’t sure what they interpreted by her words, but Dean and Castiel grabbed Victor, each by an arm and started pulling him away. Meg tried to buck again, as her hand felt around on the floor.

“Oh, no, you won’t!” Lilith screamed, renewing her efforts to choke Meg.

Luc didn’t look as tall and muscular as Benny and Sam, but he probably had the blood of his most recent victims running through his veins. Right now, he had already managed to push Sam away and he was turning to dodge Benny’s punches.

Meg’s hand closed on the machete’s handle.

The urge to protect her boys overtook any other instinct of survival she might still have left. She moved the machete again and this time, she cut through muscles and bones.

Lilith’s yell rang in her ears as she moved away, holding the bloody stump where her had been a second before.

“Luc!” she called. “Luc!”

Meg jumped over her, grabbed a handful of her hair and ignoring her howls, brought her weapon down again. The blood splattered on her clothes and the floor, and a second later, she found herself holding unto Lilith’s severed head.

The roar of anguish that Luc let out was unlike anything Meg had ever heard. The fury, the desperation. It scared her far more than anything that he had said or done to her through the centuries. Because it proved to her that he was capable of loving something after all.

And she had just destroyed it.

Well, it was too late to back down now.

Meg stood up, squared her shoulders and threw Lilith’s head on the floor at his feet. Benny and Sam were both down: Sam laid limp against the wall, his head lolled over his shoulder, and Benny was on the other side, nursing a wound on his stomach and spitting out blood. She couldn’t count on them to make another daring surprise attack.

It didn’t matter. She raised her blood-stained weapon at her Sire, looking at him in the eye, defying him to come for her.

He did not such thing. Instead, his lips curved up in a deranged smile as he stepped back.

“An eye for an eye, darling,” he muttered, right before he turned on his heel and left the room running.

Meg’s blood ran cold in her veins when she realized what he meant.

“No, no!” she shouted as she dashed after him. “Your fight is with me, you coward!”

Luc paid no mind to her as he jumped the last steps and crossed the destroyed hallways towards the lobby.

The Impala was stuck among the debris of the wall they had crushed into. Its wheels spun on their place, unable to move it, even when they started going faster as soon as Dean and Castiel realized Luc was coming at them.

Luc jumped over the bonnet and shattered the windshield with a single punch. His hand went straight to Castiel, grabbing him by the lapel of his shirt and pulling him out through the broken glass. Castiel tried hopelessly to hit him, to escape his grip, but he was too strong.

And Meg was still too far away to stop him. Her heart shrank in her chest…

The shoot was close enough that it managed to make Luc let go off Cas.

Dean raised the gun, aiming at Luc’s head, but he didn’t have time to squeeze the trigger again before Luc grabbed him by the wrist, took the weapon and turned it on him.

“No!” Castiel screamed as Dean’s body collapsed on the floor, blood gushing out from the gunshot on his stomach.

“These things are so uncivilized,” Luc complained as he turned the barrel towards Castiel. “But they sure get the job done…”

Meg screamed out and he turned towards her. The bullet crashed against the edge of her machete, bending it with a loud clank. Meg threw it aside, blind with rage.

He had dared to threaten Cas. He had killed Dean. It was over.

She jumped over him, knocking the gun off his hand. The smell of fresh blood in the air maddened her in a way that she hadn’t been since she was a newborn. Luc tried to hit her, but Meg opened her mouth and in a moment, her teeth were sunk deep in his throat.

His sour blood hit her tongue and she saw Luc like he’d never seen before. She saw a knight laying in a dessert, dying of thirst and infected wounds inside of his overheated armor, the sun agonizing in the sky until a creature with its face covered by a veil approached him.

She saw Lilith, the beautiful daughter of a nobleman that he wanted. He had wanted her and taken her for himself, because why wouldn’t he? He was a creature of the darkness, a demon, he could have whatever he want and not even God himself had a right to stop him. He’d stolen her from the tower where her father had locked her away and made her like him, his forevermore.

He saw Ruby and herself the way Luc had seen them: as this beautiful playthings for him, as the coven grew. She saw the nights dancing in Paris, the streets of London, the war in Germany. The blood and the betrayal and the ecstasy every time a victim died in his arms, every time the lights went out of their eyes. Their pain was so beautiful, so delicious, why couldn’t Meg see it before?

Why couldn’t she understand it before?

Because he was a monster. A selfish, lonely creature that had survived centuries through the destruction and death of others.

He hadn’t known the kind of love she felt for Cas, or for Benny, or the kind Dean and Sam had for each other. She had spent all those years wondering what she had done wrong, what she could have done for him to love her like he did Lilith and now she knew.

Nothing at all. Because he was incapable of love.

Meg moved away, her veins pulsating with the heavy blood of her Sire, filling her up with energy and fury.

Luc wasn’t dead. His throat was so cut, the red of his muscles so exposed, it seemed impossible he was still alive, still breathing, but she could hear his weak heart still beating. She could hear everything: six different sets of breathing, three humans, two vampires. She could smell Victor’s cologne, the car’s gasoline, the sweat in Castiel’s skin, Dean’s blood. The world was clearer than it had ever been.

Luc opened his mouth just as Meg put her hands at both sides of his head.

“Shut up,” she said.

The muscles ripped with ease and the bones splintered as she pulled his head out. His glassy eyes, now empty looked directly at her as she held his head up, only to throw it over her shoulder the following moment.

It was over. Centuries of madness and blood, over in a second.

She should’ve felt something, she thought, as she climbed down from the bonnet and pushed the headless body aside. She should have felt triumphant or relieved or… anything.

Instead, she was still in that state where she could see everything, where she could understand everything.

“Meg!” Castiel was right next to her, grabbing her by the shoulders and pulling her in. She buried her face in his chest, soaking in his warmth and his familiar scent. He seemed so fragile in her arms, like if she squeezed a little too hard, she would break him. But she still held on to him as tightly as she dared as he moved away and kissed her lips.

She must have looked a mess, with blood all over her. She must have seem like a monster.

And he still kissed her and petted her hair and asked her if she was alright.

She almost laughed. How was she even supposed to answer to that?

“I’m…”

“Dean!”

Sam’s voice reached them with a strangled sob. Him and Benny had knelt in front of him. Benny held his shoulders delicately, afraid to move him, and Sam was crying, with his hands in his brother’s face.

“No, please. Dean, stay. Stay with me…”

Dean’s face was ashen, his lips pale. He was still alive, though. His teeth where red when he tried to smile reassuringly at his brother, just as red as the hand he held against the open wound in his stomach. Yes, he was alive, but he wouldn’t be for much longer.

“Dean, please,” Sam begged. “Just… hold on. We’re gonna get an ambulance. Benny, help me movie him. Benny!”

Benny just looked at him with tears streaming down his cheeks. He knew the same thing Meg knew and she wagered Sam knew it too, but he was just refusing to believe it. His bloodstream, whatever blood he hadn’t lost, was getting infected. Even if by some miracle he managed to make it alive to the hospital…

“It’s okay…” Dean coughed. “Sam…”

“No, no,” Sam kept repeating, shaking his head.

Meg put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him back as she knelt next to Dean.

“Dean, listen to me. You’re dying.”

“You’ve never…” he started saying, but whatever quip he was about to say got drowned out by his coughing. Meg put a hand on his shoulder and held him up against the wall.

“We have a chance to save you,” she told him. “But I think you know what has to happen.”

Dean stared at her, his green eyes wide open. He shivered and opened his mouth again.

“Don’t speak,” Meg warned him. “Either we turn you right now or you die.”

Dean looked at Benny, who simply nodded to confirm Meg’s words.

“It’s your choice, love,” he muttered, squeezing Dean’s hand tight.

Dean’s eyes darted up to Sam. With how much he hated being a vampire, Meg thought he was going to say that it wasn’t worth it, stay with Dean until he went.

“I can’t do this without you,” Sam said instead, his voice broken. “I _won’t_.”

That seemed to be the push Dean needed. He gave Meg a faint nod and laid back down against the wall, his eyes closing and going white.

“Dean? Dean!” Sam shouted.

Meg bit into her own wrist, tearing into her own flash and then pressing it against Dean’s open mouth. He was passing out and both Benny and Sam were screaming out, but she ignored them as she kept pressing her wound, letting a constant stream of blood slide into Dean’s throat.

It might have been too late.

She hoped for the boys’ sake that it wouldn’t be too late.


	17. Epilogue

The groceries rattled on the passenger seat next to Castiel. Usually, he didn’t need much, but that night he was going all out, so he had filled his cart to the brim.

“You’re having a party, eh?” the cashier had asked as he handed his card to her.

“Oh, yes,” Castiel had said, smiling at her. “It’s my birthday.”

“Hey, happy birthday! How old are you today?”

Thirty-three. Same age Jesus was when he died and came back to life, as Meg liked to joke sometimes.

He stopped the car in front of the gates when he noticed another one parked there. A black sedan with official plaques and a man standing outside of it, leaning against it.

“Detective,” Castiel called him out as Victor Henriksen took three steps towards him. “No. It’s agent now, isn’t it?” Castiel corrected himself.

“It is,” Agent Henriksen said, curtly.

The last decade had been kind to him, Castiel thought. He was wearing a better suit than the last time he’d seen him and his steps were more confident.

“We saw you on the news last year,” Castiel commented as he opened the passenger door and took out the groceries. “You figured out the case of that missing girl.”

“Yes, well… once you know what you’re dealing with, it wasn’t that difficult,” he said, with a shrug.

“You’re selling yourself short,” Castiel assured him. “Not everyone would be brave enough to charge into a vampire’s lair, guns blazing.”

He laughed, but Henriksen only gave him a polite smile.

“That’s precisely what I wanted to talk to you about.”

It had been… four, five years since the last time Henriksen had showed up at the mansion asking for their help on a case. Meg was convinced he owed them something for his meteoric rise and subsequent transfer to the FBI. After all, they were the ones who told him whether what he was dealing with was a vampire or not, or what to look for when he was out of clues.

But he had also helped them on many occasions, including covering up for them when Billie’s side hustle of selling the blood of the bodies at her funeral home to them was threatened to be uncovered. So Castiel considered him a cordial, but distant, friend.

“We missed you at our wedding,” he commented as he opened the gate for them to walk up to the door.

“Yes, that. I’m… I apologize,” Henriksen replied, looking very uncomfortable with the mention. “I didn’t think… given the nature of your relationship with Meg, given… all of that, I didn’t think it was a serious matter.”

Castiel smiled as he guided him towards the side door that lead directly into the kitchen.

“We’ve been… bonded in a special way for years and of course, I moved here as soon as I graduated. The wedding wasn’t so much for us as it was for my family and friends.”

That wasn’t entirely true, of course. It had also been for him. There was something that filled him with pride and satisfaction when he could talk so fondly about “his wife”, on wearing a wedding band on his finger with her initials engraved on them. Meg had protested and said that it was a completely unnecessary affair, for much the same reasons Henriksen was spouting now, but she’d gone through with it to please him.

“Well, I’m… glad you’re happy with your choices,” he said.

That was a very diplomatic way of putting it.

Castiel finished putting away the groceries and offered him a coffee.

“To us, this is early morning,” he explained. “The rest are probably only now waking up.”

“Oh.” Henriksen eyed the door with suspicion, like he feared a hungry vampire would burst in at any second and attack him. “I wouldn’t want to…”

“You’re welcome any time,” Castiel insisted. “Please, sit down. Have a coffee. And show me that folder you’ve been carrying.”

Henriksen did so, though he didn’t stop looking uncomfortable.

“We’ve had several incidents in the past two weeks. A gas station employee, then three people outside a roadhouse, then a motel clerk and a couple of guests at said motel. All violently killed and robbed.”

“Their throats?” Castiel asked, wincing at the horrific pictures in front of him. He had seen worse, of course, but it still wasn’t always easy for him.

“Torn. Not enough blood in any of the crime scenes.”

That was usually the tell-tale sign.

“The killer is following the interstate, heading this way,” Henriksen pointed out, handing him a map where he had marked the places where the attacks had taken place. “Do you think it’s a single vampire?”

“I could think so, but this attack—” Castiel pointed at the three bodies on the bar. “— it might be more than one. Perhaps a small coven. If it’s only one and was capable of killing three people in one night, it might even be a newborn.”

Henriksen nodded.

“Do you want me to deal with it?”

“Meg is going to want to know who created them and why they’re coming here,” Castiel sighed.

He knew why it might be, though. With Boris dead, Meg was the oldest vampire left in the country. Their coven had created a bit of a reputation with their no-kill policy and well, it wouldn’t be the first time someone thought they could come at them, defeat them and take over their territory. They lived in a big bustling city, after all, one that could look like an open buffet for vampires who lead a different lifestyle.

Time and again, they found out they had been wrong.

“I will let them know,” Castiel said, with a smile. “Tonight we’re having a party, though.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize it was a special occasion.”

“It is. Why don’t you stay and celebrate with us?”

He might as well have asked to bite into a lemon, because Henriksen put down his cup of coffee quickly and started making excuses.

“Thank you, but I should really be heading back. Besides, I wouldn’t want to intrude in… whatever is it that you’re going to do.”

“We’re not having a blood orgy, agent.”

This got him even more flustered.

“No, of course not. I didn’t mean to imply…”

“It’s a joke.”

“Oh.” Henriksen forced out a laughter. “Yes, I know. Uh… either way, I think I should be going now.”

“That’s alright. Do you still have the same number?” Castiel asked, standing up. “We will let you know as soon as this has been dealt with.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Castiel walked with him towards the main door. The lights were still off, but as soon as they made it into the lounge, they heard some giggling and the sound of some kissing and rustling.

He turned on the light.

Benny and Dean were on the couch together and quickly untangled themselves from one another when they realized they weren’t alone anymore.

“Victor!” Dean said, as he Benny quickly buckled up his belt again. “Uh… we didn’t know you were coming.”

“Yes, I’m thinking I should have called ahead,” Henriksen said, while Castiel pinched the bridge of his nose.

They were like teenagers, those two. At least he and Meg were able to keep their hands to themselves for five minutes.

“Hey, why don’t you stay a while?” Dean asked him. “Sam and Meg are coming back with the, uh… supplies. And then we’re having a party!”

“Thank you, but no,” Henriksen said, eyeing Castiel. He had seen him putting the groceries away, so he could perfectly suspect which supplies Sam had gone to find out. “I should get going.”

“Suit yourself,” Benny said, with a shrug. “But it was good to see you again, agent.”

Henriksen waved them goodbye as Castiel walked him out into the front yard and towards the gates again.

“Can I ask you something personal?” he said as Castiel opened them for him.

“Of course.”

“You’re not… like them, are you?” Henriksen asked. “You’re the only one who’s grown older, you still go out in the sun…”

“They can all go out in the sun, with the proper measures. You should know this by now.”

“Yes.” Henriksen scratched the back of his neck. “But you know what I mean. You’re still…”

“Human.” Castiel nodded. “I won’t be after tonight, though.”

“Oh.” Henriksen’s eyes grew wider. “Is that… that’s what you’re celebrating?”

“Pretty much. Sam and Dean… and I guess Benny and Meg, too. They didn’t have a chance to choose this life, the way they were turned was either traumatic or rushed or both,” Castiel explained. “I guess they just wanted to do this nice thing for me. To make it feel like a celebration instead of a catastrophe.”

“I still don’t understand why you would choose this,” Henriksen continued. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Castel assured him, but he still stopped to reflect on that question. “I guess… I have found someone that makes eternity seem worthwhile.”

Just as he was speaking, they heard the roar of the Impala’s engine coming down the road. The car passed the gate and drove up to the door. Sam came out from the passenger seat with a cooler in hand and waved at Castiel and Henriksen.

Meg came out from the other, took off her sun glasses and leaned against the car with a smirk in her lips.

As always, Castiel’s heart thrummed at the sight of her.

“That’s my cue to leave,” Henriksen said.

“Good luck, agent.”

Henriksen looked at him as if he wanted to say something else, but in the end, he desisted. He got into his car and drove away as Castiel closed the gates in his wake.

Meg stretched out her arms at him and Castiel let her hug him and kiss him, as possessive now as she had been a decade ago.

“What did Henriksen want?” she asked.

“I’ll tell you about it in the morning,” Castiel said. “Did you talk to Sam?”

“Yes and you were right. He was feeling a bit down, being surrounded by loving couples every day,” Meg told him. “He still misses Jessica, but he assured me he will be fine. But I’m thinking maybe we should take a trip and convince Dean and Benny to do the same, to give him some space.”

“That sounds good, though I’d advocate for Dean and Benny to go elsewhere. We never did have a honeymoon.”

Meg laughed and stopped at the doorway. She looked so beautiful, with her wavy hair like a stormy night around her face. He could never imagine getting tired of that sight.

He had told her every day for the last decade, but she asked anyway.

“Are you sure, Cas? We really don’t have to do this tonight. We have all the time in the world.”

He closed the space that separated them and kissed her again.

“I know,” he told her. “I can’t wait to spend it all with you.”


End file.
